In today’s post I’m going to tell you about my experiences with Aweber’s autoresponder/email marketing service.

What is Aweber?

Aweber is a popular email list management and autoresponder tool used by bloggers, business owners, and internet marketers. It allows you to build a list of subscribers, send out an email newsletter, and create an unlimited number of email marketing campaigns using autoresponders so you can send out a series of messages automatically while you lay in the sun sipping cocktails.

I use Aweber on this blog and on another site I own, and I have several ideas on how I can make money with Aweber in the future (I smell a new series of posts in the near future).

Why did I choose Aweber?

I first signed up with Aweber a couple of years ago when I was running a site selling Private Label Rights articles with a little ghostwriting mixed in.  I needed a way to keep in touch with customers and prospects…to announce new article packs were available, to offer discounts, and to just to remind them I existed.

When I first realized I need a list management/email newsletter tool I went to various online marketing forums and dug through old threads to see what users had to say. I posted questions asking which was the best option available and why. And then I signed up to a bunch of newsletters to see which service people were actually using.

It didn’t take me long to realize Aweber was the way to go…

• Delivery rates are higher than other providers. What’s the point of having a list of subscribers if they never get your emails?
• Aweber’s double opt-in requirement offers protection against CAN-SPAM complaints.
• Tons of features and templates to customize your newsletter.
• Awesome training tools including a knowledge base system and live webinar tutorials.
• Killer support including real people by phone, email, and live chat.
• Integration with Twitter and Facebook so all blog posts can be automatically posted on both sites.

How I’ve used Aweber so far

As I mentioned above, I first signed up with Aweber so I can keep in touch with people who purchased my PLR article packages. I haven’t updated that site in ages and it has suffered mightily from lack of attention. I might go back and start releasing new packs and building it up again, but right now I just don’t have the time.

I also created a new Aweber list so I can build a database of subsribers to this blog.  Notice the big box on top of my navbars asking for your name and email?  That’s an Aweber web form designed to attract subscribers. Actually, you might see 2 different boxes if you visit often. I’m split-testing (one of the cool features I told you about) a couple of different options to see which gets better results.

When you subscribe using that box you’ll automatically receive email updates whenever I post a new article on this blog.

Now I know what you bloggers are thinking…why not just use Feedburner? They offer email subscriptions and they are free.

Well actually I DO offer Feedburner email subscriptions as an option. But emailing new blog posts is about all Feedburner is good at and I need more than that. With Aweber I can also send off “broadcast messages” which are basically one off emails to subscribers only. In the future I plan to hold contests, giveaways, and other cool stuff strictly for email subscribers.  I can also offer premium content and free reports to subscribers so they know how much I value them.  (I also need to create some kind of free report to entice people to subscribe.)

What do I plan to do with Aweber next?

The same thing we do every night Pinky…try to take over the world!

Just kidding…right now I want to concentrate on building up this blog and making it a “go to” place for people looking for personal finance advice. Along with that I want to build up a list of loyal subscribers. So that’s number one on my list.

But I have other plans to make money with Aweber…

1. I’m thinking of offering a series of short reports for sale. They would be priced cheap so everyone could afford them but contain enough useful information that they’d be worth many times what I’d charge. By overdelivering I could build a customer base and use Aweber to announce new reports.

2. I’m going to create a couple of short email courses where the main site would basically be a signup page for the free course. In addition to lots of great content there would be some affiliate links mixed in so I could cover the costs of hosting and hopefully make a little profit. The course would be delivered via email autoresponder so once I set it up it would be on autopilot. That’s passive income baby!

To learn more about how YOU can make money with Aweber click here right now.

Years ago, when parents decided to stay home to raise their child, they had very few options to make extra money.  Usually, the best option was to care for other children during the day.  Now, thanks to the Internet, stay at home parents have plenty of options to generate extra income.  I have stayed home with my kids for the past two years, and now I make as much money working from home as my husband does in his 9 to 5 job.

While there are plenty of ways to make extra money from home, these four suggestions will be possible for many:

1.  Blog or run a niche website.  Admittedly, building an income stream this way takes both time and money.  You won’t get rich quickly with blogging.  However, with serious effort, you can begin to generate an income stream.  Part of my monthly income comes from blogging, though that is only one small part of my monthly income.  Mostly I blog because I love to write.  If you try to blog just to make money, you will probably have a difficult time because it often takes several months before you make any money.
2. Teach others your specialty. Did you formerly work as a teacher?  If so, consider working as a tutor.  If you don’t have the flexibility to leave home to meet students, consider tutoring online. A site like tutor.com can help you become an online tutor.  You just have to be able to dedicate a certain number of hours per week to the job.  Likewise, if you are an accomplished musician or singer, consider giving lessons to those who want to learn.
3. Become a virtual assistant.  Thanks to the growth of blogs and the online industry in general, many people need help with administrative work.  If you are able to work independently, get work done within a designated time frame, have administrative skills, like to work with others, and have good communication skills, you may be well-suited to work as a virtual assistant.  You can find jobs as a virtual assistant at sites like odesk.com, but the pay is generally low.  Instead, you may want to consult sites like workathomemomrevolution.com or theworkathomewife.com, which regularly share virtual assistant job openings.
4. Join focus groups.  Marketing firms are regularly looking for people to share their thoughts and impressions about certain products.  To be picked for a focus group, you must apply by answering a series of questions.  Then, if you are chosen, you will often earn $100 or more for two hours of your time.  A good place to look for focus group openings is on Craigslist.org, especially if you live near a large city.

If you are a stay at home parent, there are plenty of ways you can find to supplement your family’s income.  Most of these jobs have flexible hours, allowing you to work when the kids are napping or asleep for the night or when they are at school.  With diligence, you may find yourself making a nice supplemental income while caring for your children at home.

If you are a stay at home parent, what are your favorite ways to earn extra money?

So far 2011 is set to be my best year yet in terms of online income.  I’m on pace to more than double last year’s total revenue (and 2010 had been my best year to date).

But I’m not just resting on my laurels.  I still have a long way to go to reach my long-term goal of quitting my day job and living off my online income.

So as I continue to grow this blog and a handful of smaller niche websites. I’m launching another full scale blog called Money Matters Guy.

Money Matters Guy will be another personal finance blog, but it will have a slightly different tone.  While Saving Money Today will focus mostly on sharing tips for saving money, getting out of debt, and making extra money…MMG will have a broader focus where I’ll try to touch on all different financial aspects with a big picture view.

I’ve already got some articles in the can and ready to post, plus I have a whole list of topics to write about, so there will be plenty of content up at MMG before you know it.

And of course, I’ll still be writing here at SMT…though I’ll also continue to rely on guest posts and possibly a staff writer or 2 in the near future.

So please check out my new site at http://moneymattersguy.com and let me know what you think!

To all my fellow bloggers out there…how much would it take for you to sell your blog?

The reason I’m asking is that I received an email from someone who wanted to buy Saving Money Today.  Don’t worry I have no plans to sell, especially for the low ball price this guy was offering.   But it did start me thinking.

What if someone came along and made a serious offer that was too good to pass up?   Everything has a price and even though I’m looking to build long-term streams of revenue with my sites, I’d be foolish not to listen to a legitimate offer.  A lump sum payout would let me pour money into some of my other sites and I could always start a new blog anyway (actually I’m already doing that, I’ve got the domain registered but no content up yet).

The tricky thing would be determining at what price I would let it go.  The bulk of my online income comes from this blog but I haven’t been tracking it closely enough to know exactly what the percentage is.  I really should start tracking revenue for each of my sites more carefully.

Another concern would be how to deal with advertisers who have prepaid months in advance.  If I sold this blog tomorrow, do those advertising deals go with it or do I refund the pro-rated portion to the advertiser and let them work out their own deal with the new owner?

Interesting things to think about.  I’m curious how other bloggers would deal with them.  Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.

Lately I haven’t been posting as often as usual and I also haven’t been commenting on other blogs as much (though I have still been visiting), but it’s not because of the holidays or that I’m lazy.

The truth is I’ve been working on a new site that I’m finally ready to announce!  It’s called How to Make a Website 101, and it’s basically a guide to creating websites from the ground up, no experience necessary.

Now I know a good number of my readers already have their own blogs but for those of you who don’t, you really need to check out my site and let me prove that anyone can learn how to make a website…yes, even YOU!

Once you get there, you’ll see a section called Getting Started.  Those are all static pages and they make up what I consider the core curriculum.  They’ll walk you through the basics of getting your site up and running.  I still have a few more pages to add on topics like Niche and Keyword research, monetization, setting up a newsletter, and more.

There will also be lots of blog-style posts and those are listed under Recent Articles.  There’s only one at the moment but plenty more to come.

Please feel free to stop by and kick the tires.  Then drop me an email and let me know what you think!

Here’s the link again…http://howtomakeawebsite101.net

For years, Google PageRank has ruled supremely as the ultimate measure of a website’s authority.   It could make or break websites, and millions of dollars changed hands based on that little green bar in the Google toolbar.  But the clock has struck twelve, and PageRank is no longer queen of the ball.

What is Pagerank?

Pagerank is the algorithm that Google uses to determine the authority of a web page, and it is one of the factors that determine where those pages appear in their search results.  The idea behind PR is that every link pointing to a site is like a vote of approval, so it makes sense that the most important pages have the most links and the highest PageRank.

But it also looks at the importance of the pages where the link originates.  A backlink from a page with lots of authority is more valuable than one with very little.  Those high PR pages have a lot more weight behind them.

It’s important to note that the PageRank score (ranging from 0 to 10) that you see in the Google toolbar is not an accurate reflection of a web page’s true authority.  Although it is believed that Google updates their own internal PR scores in near real-time, the toolbar is updated only periodically.  It used to be done monthly, and then quarterly.  But the last confirmed update was April 2010 and there are rumors that Google will no longer update the toolbar going forward.

That’s a big problem for webmasters for a couple of reasons.

First of all, webmasters are competitive and we like to compare ourselves to our peers.  I like to look at some of the other personal finance blogs out there and see how I’m doing by comparison.  This blog is currently a PR 2, but it got that score way back in April when I had only been blogging for a few months and didn’t have many backlinks.  It wasn’t until later that I hit my stride and started growing, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at PageRank.

Also, advertisers use PageRank as a way to determine which websites they want to work with.  High PageRank sites are able to negotiate a higher price because advertisers assume they are more important, have a larger following, etc.  But how can you judge a site based on a number that is 8 months old?   I know plenty of sites that are still stuck at zero because they were started after the last update…but they have great content and a growing fan base.  It’s just not fair.

An Alternative

Luckily, SEOmoz has introduced mozRank as an alternative to PageRank.  mozRank works on a similar 1-10 scale as PageRank, but it is more specific by two decimal places.  As I write this Saving Money Today currently has a mozRank of 4.94.  That’s a lot better than a PageRank of 2!

You can check a site’s mozRank at Website Grader or Blog Grader, and you’ll actually receive a lot of other useful stats and info besides the actual mozrank.

Unfortunately mozRank is still new and many people have never even heard of it.  This is why I am joining other bloggers in a mission to get the word out.

As long as PageRank remains hopelessly out of date, its scores are absolutely useless.  And if Google discontinues external updates, then PageRank is dead.

I mentioned the other day that I was having problems with commenting…readers were getting a 404 error (page not found) when they tried to leave a comment. 

Well it looks like that is ok now (am I wrong?) but now I don’t seem able to leave replies through my Admin screen. 

I use a plugin that lets me leave threaded replies, and I’m able to see the replies on my Admin screens but they’re not showing up on the individual posts. 

They must be caught in limbo somewhere because if you look at my post saying Facebook is a waste of time I can’t see any of the replies that I have written.   On the home page it says there are 17 comments but they aren’t all showing up on the post itself.

Weird stuff.  If anyone has an idea please let me know.  In the meantime I might have to reply the old-fashioned way from each individual post, but there’s no way I can keep doing that.

This article is for those of you with your own blogs…if you’re not a blogger you can just skip this post and wait for the next one where we’ll be back to talking about personal finance.

I’ve been participating in the Yakezie challenge which is basically a friendly competition among personal finance bloggers to see how high we can increase our alexa web rankings. 

Now I know the Alexa ranking system is flawed and in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t mean much.  But despite its flaws, a high Alexa ranking can open doors that are otherwise closed to bloggers.  Achieving a ranking in the top 100,000 or so can go a long way toward building your credibility.  Top bloggers may actually notice you and welcome you into their secret societies, and advertisers will be more likely to place ads on your site. 

In other words a high Alexa rank may help you increase your revenue substantially. 

How to Increase Your Alexa Ranking

Obviously, the best way to increase your Alexa rank, Google Page Rank, and web traffic in general is to provide high-quality content that is unique and useful to your readers.  If you provide valuable content then people will keep coming back for more. 

But creating quality content takes time.  I’ve only been blogging for a few months so it’s difficult for me to compete with bloggers that already have hundreds or even thousands of posts in the can.  (Don’t worry…I’ll get there, but it will take a little time to catch up )

So while I plug away like the little engine that could, it’s helpful to look for a few shortcuts to help speed my journey.  The tips listed below are simple ways to improve Alexa rankings quickly.  (In just 2 weeks I’ve leapfrogged over 1 million sites and continue to improve daily.)

1.  Install the Alexa toolbar and visit your site daily.  This is pretty obvious really.

2.  Get together with a few friends and form an informal network of bloggers that visits each other’s sites each day.

3.  Encourage others to download and install the Alexa toolbar.  The more people visiting your site with the toolbar installed the higher your rankings will go.

4.  Participate in webmaster forums like WarriorForum, SitePoint, and DigitalPoint.  A high percentage of users there will have the Alexa toolbar installed so if they visit your site you’ll get a boost.

5.  Write articles that teach how to improve Alexa ranking.  People searching for that topic will likely have the toolbar installed so you’ll get another boost when they visit your site.

6.  Take advantage of social media sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit.  These sites can send a boatload of traffic to your blog and improve your Alexa ranking. 

7.  Pay for it.  If you create a page targeting webmasters you can drive traffic to it via PPC and get loads of traffic. 

Now I don’t think it’s a very smart idea to pay for Alexa rankings when you can do it yourself for free, but it is an option. 

Well there you have it.  Seven easy tips for quickly increasing Alexa rankings. 

What are your thoughts?  Do you have any tips to share?

Financial Samurai recently launched the Yakezie Challenge…a challenge for bloggers to improve their Alexa ranking while also helping to promote other members of the challenge so they can improve their own ranking.

I can’t believe I missed out on it for this long…but many thank yous to Mrs Accountability and FFB for posting about the challenge because now I’m going to jump in head first!

My goals for this challenge are as follow…

• Achieve an Alexa ranking of under 200,000
• Increase my readership and traffic
• Write some guest posts on other blogs to build my reputation
• And most importantly…network with other bloggers and make some friends.

Now I’ve never really paid much attention to Alexa rankings because I think they are flawed.  But I have to admit that they hold a lot of sway in the blogosphere and having a high ranking site can open a lot of doors that would otherwise be slammed in your face.

As I start this challenge on March 8, 2010 my Alexa ranking is 1,615,590 so I have a loooong way to go to reach the top 200,000.  But I’ll get there one step at a time.

I really think the Yakezie challenge is an fantastic idea.  The key is for everyone involved to help each other as much as possible so we can all pull ourselves to the top together.

So you’ll be seeing lots of fellow Yakezie challenge blogs in my link roundups and posts.  And if you have your own blog why not step up and join the challenge?

Just a quick post to say thanks to Pete Anderson from Logos for Websites for designing a snazzy new logo for SMT.   He did a great job and I’m really happy with it.  It’s almost like he reached into my brain and knew exactly what I was looking for!

If you need a logo or any other kind of graphic work done I highly recommend Pete’s service.

PS – I’d also like to thank FFB from FreeFromBroke.com for recommending Pete.

So what do you think of the new logo?