Should You Market On The Internet?

A few years ago, Internet marketing was an option. In today’s world, it is inevitable and crucial. Can you imagine a successful business today not having an email address, a web site, or a presence on Google? Marketing, advertising, branding, public relations, all fundamentally come down to a simple essence: information. If no one knows who you are, what you do, what you can offer them, or how they can contact you, your ability to flourish financially is severely impeded. Making a sale and turning a profit means providing information in compelling, cost-effective, persuasive ways. In today’s society, when one seeks information, it is generally through referrals or Internet searches. That is why it has become a critical element in any business venture.

So should you market yourself or your product on the Internet? That is not the right question to ask. Even without realizing it, you may be inadvertently marketing yourself or your product online, since it is impossible to control the flow of information to be derived from social media sites (such as Linked-In, Facebook, MySpace or Twitter) or even blogs or forms which offer unsolicited opinions on products and services. There are few whose name would fail to yield information, to one degree or another. If a search discloses positive information, this might well lead to a sale, or a new relationship leading to a future sale. Even an absence of information is viewed with skepticism, as it is generally perceived that a person or business entity should take a proactive role in actively shaping their public image and social presence.

Marketing 101

But what is marketing? Too few people understand the core concept; rather most believe, erroneously, that marketing and sales are interchangeable concepts, whereas the reality is much more subtle.

Marketing is neither sales nor advertising. Sales and advertising do indeed form a portion of the process, but they fall along the continuum at a much later stage. Marketing, in its current incarnation, is the creation and distribution of information, and the development of relationships which may lead to sales, partnerships, joint ventures. The potential is vast, but only for those who truly understand the components entailed in successful marketing.

Marketing begins with surveying the market for your goods or services. What solutions are your potential customers seeking? What problems do they desire to resolve? What are they searching for, what are they currently purchasing? These are crucial questions to ask to determine not how to sell a product that has been chosen, but rather how to create or modify an existing product to best meet the needs of prospective consumers.

Once those needs are determined, the second major step in marketing involves configuring a product to fit those needs, modifying existing products pursuant to expressed customer requirements, or creating a service to better provide a solution to a broader audience. For example, with the current and ever-present flurry of stories on the dangers of melanoma, products with enhanced sun-blocking capabilities may be developed, earlier detection methods, created, or tanning solutions devised which require no sun exposure. Upon creation of a product or service, production and distribution costs are considered, and if the product is deemed likely to be profitable, it will proceed to development.

The product or service would then be promoted to potential consumers by describing its benefits, explaining its virtues, providing recommendations or testimonials, and, in general, endeavoring to inform the consumer as to how the product or service would satisfy their needs.

Thereafter? Marketers monitor the market segment to determine how the product or service is received. As needed, subtle changes in packaging, wording or pricing are made in response to feedback and reviews; indeed, at times the product or service is re-configured if the initial analysis was flawed to some degree.

This is why marketing is the powerful, indeed revolutionary, force that it is. It is about sensitively determining what consumers do want, what price will be acceptable, and then tailoring their product, service and equally as important, their messaging to address these requirements. In essence, by providing the information and solution for problems plaguing their customers, they create what is known as ‘attraction marketing’ – which is simply a situation where you allow the customer to easily find your product or service. The question is simply, what is the best means or methods for doing so.

The Internet Marketing Difference

Why has Internet marketing taken this process and the world by storm? Quite simply, this is due to the speed, scope and savings involved in online marketing.

Previously, if a consumer sought information about a product or a business, their options were limited. Today, a simple Google search will yield a wealth of information. What information will they find? Ah, that is where the work comes into play. The more information that you disseminate or oversee, the greater the likelihood that the very specific message that you wish to foster will be heard. Furthermore, the Internet allows the scope of your messaging to easily reach a global audience. The opportunities for communicating with potential customers are endless—from a website to a blog, from videos to press releases, from postings on Linked-In or Facebook – the choice of delivery system is as broad as your imagination. Furthermore, once your message has reached your intended audience, and it indeed provides a solution to a problem they face, you have created your own dream machine: a business that operates while you sleep. Of course, your work will continue-customer service must be supplied, as issues will occur. There will be a need for modification or enhancement of the product or service, new products and services. But for the willing participant, by engaging in relationships with potential customers, you will know what they want, when they want it, their delivery preferences, and even how to improve or enhance their experience; valuable information attainable for free.

So the solution to your marketing needs is literally at your fingertips. Major corporations as well as solo entrepreneurs are using the Internet to research their competitors, conduct market research, and build or enhance existing businesses. Start today to publish information about yourself, your firm or services, shape your public image, conduct transactions, publicize new product launches or service offerings, build networks, and support or augment every aspect of your business. Millions have done it and so can you.

How Do You Start?

Become informed. This is the first in a series of articles on this website which will provide valuable information, tips, and a few chosen experts who are remarkably generous in the free information they provide and whose courses or products offer genuine value. With all the value that the Internet provides, information overload is a very real affliction. You will, of course, make your own choices; however, the individuals or products that we recommend are those that we believe to provide the shortest distance to success. For some, the names will be familiar, and it may come as a surprise to find who have not been included, despite their so-called self-proclaimed ‘guru’ status.

Study the competition. Whatever your field may be, someone like yourself is online and using the Internet to create relationships, convert visitors to customers, and create a successful business. Successful competitors are amongst the best models and teachers that exist.

Socialize online. The Internet has always been a way to connect with others who share similar interests, hobbies, careers or even to create friendships or find dates. Social networking and social media sites are literally exploding in size and numbers. Set up an account on Twitter and follow the conversation. Begin to contribute your thoughts or opinions, or provide valuable input where possible. Search Google, Linked-In or Facebook for groups, forums, blogs or websites that are related to your field of endeavor. Find your ‘voice’ – the unique authentic aspect of your being that touches and resonates with others. Engage, but bear in mind that what you ‘say’ constitutes a virtual ‘first impression’-ensure that it is the one you wish to provide. Begin at the level of comfort that suits your current situation – begin with a pseudonym, establish a blog at www.wordpress.com or www.blogger.com. The more experience that you cultivate while interacting online, the better the experience that you will be able to provide to your clients and customers.

Commit. Remember, marketing on the Internet is not optional. You and your business are already making an impression on the Internet. Potential customers even now are searching for your products or services, and some may even be searching for you. What they find will determine how they judge you, what you offer, and how they react. To start, it is necessary only to have an Internet connection and a willingness to take the first step. Effectively communicating online will build relationships, attract customers, and inevitably create a stream of income. In addition, yours may be just the voice that changes the course of someone’s life.

Complex as it may appear, however, is it necessary to hire Search Engine Optimization specialists to obtain a higher rating? Not necessarily, in fact, a web page with a high ranking website may have more to do with the popularity of its subject matter or content, rather than its technical complexity, and private individuals have, on occasion, achieved higher rankings than wealthy corporations. What causes one site to succeed while others flounder? Of course, first and foremost, content is crucial. Focus upon the needs of your audience, as well as your interests. Your integrity and authenticity, combined with well-written content is the foundation. Once this is in place, the use of a few SEO basics will make the difference.

Find the Right Keywords

When people search for information using the Internet, they use particular combinations of words. These are called keywords, and knowing the ones pertinent to your business which are the most widely searched is critical to obtaining premium search engine results. By way of example, imagine that you operate a pizzeria and you want people to find your website so that they can place an order. Obviously you would optimize your website for the word “pizzeria” to enable your business to be amongst the first to arise, right? Wrong. Because if you do a keyword search, it will show that while over 5,000 people a day type the word “pizza” into search engines, only 40 type in the word “pizzeria”. Over 100 to 1 more people search for the word “pizza” than “pizzeria”. So if you optimize for the term “pizza” you will receive over one hundred times more traffic. That is the keyword you want, simply because that is the word the majority of your potential customers use.

How do you find out what keywords to use? You can find out for free using the Google AdWord Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal), and type in various words to actually track the numbers. The list obtained shows precisely how many searches were conducted for each term, as well as how many people are searching for associated or related terms. Obviously, when you find a large number of searches for one or more terms, these generally are the keywords that will be amongst those that should be incorporated into the content on your site. One caveat, if certain results show that millions of searches were made for a particular term, your use of this term will probably fail to obtain the success you seek because of the depth and breadth of the competition. Thus, in addition to the ‘jackpot’ words, the use of a myriad of related terms with lower competition is advised. You may also hear the term ‘long-tailed’ keyword, which is simply a description of multiple words (as opposed to a single word). This may entail a descriptor to add to the main word (i.e., instead of ‘fitness’, use ‘Baby Boomer fitness’.

Optimizing Code for SEO

Once you have a list of the main keywords that people are looking for, what do you do with them? First, put them into the code of your website. Arguably, the most important place is the title bar. If your company sells innovative new widgets, and you know from your research that ten times as many people a day search for this exact phrase, ‘Innovative New Widgets”, over competing terms, put this phrase in the title bar. If possible, also include the phrase in the domain name for your site or blog: innovativenewwidgets.com.

If you have an image of the widget on your page, add a descriptor to the ALT tag which describes the widget. This serves several purposes; primarily to provide information to the visually impaired, but also an opportunity to add your chosen keywords. Be certain to refrain from adding your keywords to unrelated images. This is not only a matter of integrity, but if overuse of the keyword may well negatively impact your site in the ‘eyes’ of the search engines. The specific term used for such behavior is ‘keyword stuffing’ and the search engines will penalize such activity. Another place to add the keyword is in the meta tag section. The same caution raised above is appropriate to note here. While past abuse has led search engines to downgrade their importance, they still have an impact when evaluating your site.

If possible, also make sure that your web page code is validated. The W3C – the World Wide Web Consortium – has free validation services that review web pages and advise as to whether the page is written in valid code. If not, it may still show up on most browsers, but search engines tend to downgrade an improperly coded site. Another tip: while attractive to the human eye, do try to avoid Javascript and Flash if possible. Javascript provides entertaining effects such as rollovers and pop-ups, but generally adds a massive amount of code to the top of the page. Search engines as a rule prefer pages that are smaller in size, have a higher ratio of keywords to other material, and have keywords closer to the front of the page than the rear. With respect to Flash, the story is even more problematic as search engines do not even scan Flash. Yes, there are certain workarounds, but these are of limited effect. Thus, a 100% Flash website will dramatically impact your SEO results when launching a website.

Optimizing Content for SEO

One of the fastest growing online specialties is SEO copywriting, and in fact you can and should write content in a way that attracts search engine attention. That said, traditional SEO copywriting may in fact cause issues for your readers, as the content will be stilted and awkward, since the intent is to include the keywords as often as possible, even when they succeed only in creating a user-unfriendly document. It is critical to use keywords in the text, and there are ways to position them to enable improved rankings. Search engines pay extra attention to keywords in titles of articles or blog posts, sub-headers, bold or italicized keywords. The rule, where possible, is that the keywords should generally be closer to the front of the text or the very end, as opposed to the middle.

Of course, this advice should be used with caveats. Historically, search engine optimization has been an extended game of cat and mouse played between determined marketers intent on driving their page to the top by whatever means, and brilliant search engine technicians determined to make sure that searches serve up the most relevant pages, and strive to avoid marketing tricks. This game has had an entertaining evolution: when the number of keywords alone gave a high ranking, pages stuffed with keywords appeared; when search engines banned such activities, the keywords appeared in font sizes so small as to be nearly microscopic, or printed in white colors against a white background, so as to be invisible. Of course they were caught, and each new attempt resulted in new rules, called algorithms, and the site was penalized (or sandboxed, meaning that the site was dropped from the search engines for a period of time ranging from a few weeks to numerous months). The biggest of the search engines, Google, which receives between one-half and three-quarters of all search engine queries, eventually developed an algorithm that is not only immensely complex but revised regularly and constantly (and, some say, arbitrarily) with the result that no rankings are ever entirely stable. Indeed, the web page that is perfectly optimized today may be judged over-optimized tomorrow. Keeping abreast of changes in algorithms is essential, however, as many online are generous with their knowledge, any such changes are generally broadcast quite widely, and appropriate changes can be made to ensure that your site remains in compliance.

What this means is that, while a few appearances of your keywords is mandatory, a flurry of is likely to be counter-productive, at best. So use keywords, but avoid overuse, bolding or italicizing too often, and where appropriate, use the keywords in conjunction with related words which would naturally be associated with such terms. Google’s algorithms understand that someone seeking to purchase a dog collar will be more likely to be interested in a page that features the words ‘dog, collar, leash, rhinestone, name plate, puppy’, than to a site which simply uses the same keyword ad nauseam: DOG COLLAR DOG COLLAR DOG COLLAR ad nauseam. So do use keywords, integrated into informative, well-crafted articles or blog posts, and avoid attempts to ‘trick’ the search engines. Your readers will be happy, and the search engines will reward you.

Optimizing Linking for SEO

The most powerful aspect as respects to ranking in the search engines, and raising a web page’s rank, paradoxically, has little to do with the website or blog itself. Rather, the secret is the links to the site. If one million people a day visit Oprah’s website, this site will show up on page one despite any efforts made at SEO optimization.

The principle to remember is that the search engines try to serve up pages that are relevant in response to queries. If hundreds and thousands of other sites link to a particular page, search engines assume that those sites deem it relevant, and its ranking soars. If you want your site to rise, then, perhaps the single best step you can do is to get other sites, preferably high-ranking sites, to regard your website or blog as a valuable resource worth recommending. The more links that your site or blog receives, and the better the quality of the links (as determined by the ranking of the linking site), the higher the ranking. (Here too, however, one should be cautious. There are online companies, known as “link farms” whose sole reason for existing is to link to other sites and raise their ranks. A link from such a site, once classified as such by a search engine, will lower rank rather than lift your rating, as the search engines frown upon ‘purchased links’.)

Another recommended, though admittedly laborious effort, is the appropriate use of social bookmarking and social media. Post on Twitter and link back to your site or blog, add relevant and valuable comments to blogs owned by others leaving your site information, post an article on DIGG or StumbleOn for review by others. High ratings will drive traffic to your site. Of course, media is quickly taking over as an alternative content source. Posting a video to YouTube or other video outlets, with the url for your site or blog, and a short but well-crafted summary will has the potential to be viewed by millions.

Beyond SEO

SEO is by no means limited to raising the page ranks in Google. Yahoo, Bing, Ask, Alta Vista, Dogpile – the number of available search engines is vast, and while Google remains the storied 800-pound gorilla, if a smaller search attracts “only” five or ten millions users or so, that is hardly a reason to ignore it. Nor is SEO limited to websites and blogs. For example, you can optimize digital information, press releases, and Adwords ads. However, these uses are a little more esoteric. When starting out, focus on the basics set forth in this article.

Ideally, you want the best of both worlds: valuable content and high optimization. Never sacrifice content for optimization. This strategy may work in the short run, but for long-term success, and loyal readers and customers, the primary focus should be the development of content that will inform, educate, and provide value to others. Ask yourself this question – is this a website or blog that I would enjoy visiting on a regular basis?

Suicide rates have soared in the wake of the global recession, and the victims are by no means restricted to the poor: New York attorney William Parente killed his wife and two daughters before committing suicide in a Maryland hotel room after losing $27 billion dollars for his clients, and the finance chief of the troubled U.S. mortgage giant Freddie Mac, David Kellermann, was found dead on April 22nd after apparently committing suicide. Socially, financial stress seems an omnipresent factor in modern American society. It may be capable of amelioration and correction, particularly in individual cases, however, as a societal indeed a global concern, individual issues may never be fully resolved until the social aspects are addressed..

What Forms Does Financial Stress Take?

Financial stress presents itself in two, often overlapping, guises.

Objective Financial Stress

The first is objective financial stress: in such cases, individuals experience health and mental problems stemming directly from the economic facts of their immediate environment. If you have no money for food, or for nutritious foods, if you cannot afford health care or medical treatment or supplements, if you are born into an impoverished country or into an impoverished ghetto in a wealthier country, then you live in an intrinsically stress-producing environment that at best limits your social, health and intellectual options, and at worst exposes you to conditions seriously destructive to body, mind and spirit.

Objective financial stress is not limited to the poor; the impact is experienced by those ranging from the recent graduates who find themselves with hefty school loans and a dearth of jobs, to the highly-skilled professionals who are ever-growing statistics in the seemingly unending wave of layoffs, to the real estate developers who suddenly face a nonexistent market for their services to the single mother who is forced into early retirement from a six-figure position. These are but a few examples of the wide range of individuals who have never faced poverty, but who are nonetheless facing situations that inevitably lead to severe, sometimes crippling stress. There is a sense in which all stress-related problems are subjective, since stress is something that, while it may be described and measured from outside to some degree, can only be experienced subjectively. But that subjective experience is on occasion so intimately tied up with objective conditions, that one cannot be treated without addressing the other. Thus, massive economic recessions or depressions will generate immense numbers of stress-related problems in their wake.

Aspects of objective financial stress that must be touched upon as well are societal and political. Are some societies and some forms of economic organization less stress-inducing than others? The answer is not simple. Currently the nations of the world that rank highest in various happiness indexes are the Scandinavian nations, whose socialist policies have been explicitly designed to, in part, remove stressors concerning health care, provide assistance to the elderly, a panoply of social services, absorbing the costs of higher education, and in general, reducing financial inequities. That said, socialism per se is hardly a universal panacea; the societies carved bloodily out of their respective populations by Stalin or Pol Pot can hardly be said to be lacking in stress, albeit the underpinnings of such societies were laid by dictators.

From another angle, the comparative explosion of wealth in the free enterprise-based United States has been accompanied by a seeming epidemic of mass obesity, with a host of negative consequences both physical and psychological; stressful fears of hunger and starvation may have vanished, but what has been wrought ranges from diabetes and cardiovascular disease to a disdain for the elderly and an obsession with youth and beauty.

But, whichever the extreme, it would be a significant error in judgment to imagine that there can be no improvement in individual cases until society as a whole improves or is modified. That is far from the case. Public crises have private consequences, but private consequences are privy to a host of potential solutions. If an individual is experiencing financial stress, he or she may devise a new budget, seek relief in exercise or meditation, create a new business (i.e., witness the explosion of entrepreneurs in the wake of the recent recession), and/or simply seek lateral career moves. Clearly, though the former actions will ease the degree of stress, only securing a source of income will truly alleviate the symptoms. With the advent of social media, networking for new positions or marketing a new business has never been more prized, or more easily attainable.

Subjective Financial Stress

Curiously, subjective financial stress is a problem that is in many ways easier to address than the social causes of such stress. While financially-related fear, anxiety, avoidance, negative self-talk, depression, cognitive dysfunction, and so on, are unpleasant to experience, fear and anxiety and similar problems are comparatively well-studied and well-known, and there exists a host of effective practices and responses that can minimize negative subjective responses and maximize improved attitudes and more effective activity. In many cases it may be easier to address the fear of bankruptcy than to address bankruptcy itself. There are a wealth of approaches to modifying thoughts and attitudes. Applying them to thoughts and attitudes concerning finances poses neither unique nor insurmountable obstacles.

Financial stress in the subjective sense can be broken down into several areas, including:

Financial stress in the sense of response to a perceived threat. Fear of being laid off, fear of being fired, fear of investment losses, fear of home foreclosure, fear of dependence upon others in the wake of a fiscal crisis – wherever a bleak financial future can be imagined, bleak psychological and physiological responses can be anticipated. Moreover, threat as a rule tends to stimulate the fight-or-flight response in humans, which can manifest in a wide range of anxiety disorders, as well as the negative effects of persistent chronic anxiety on relationships, both intimate and friendships, whatever the specific initial cause.

Financial stress in the sense of performance anxiety. Here individuals may face growing pressure to produce more in return for less, or may respond to a competitive situation by extreme or unhealthy overwork, or may be dogged by fears of inadequate competence. As a result, health problems may appear, ranging from high blood pressure stemming from workload overload to a compromised immune system stemming from skipped meals, far less than optimal nutrition, eliminating exercise or a chronic lack of sleep.

Financial stress in the sense of workplace stress. A large number of individuals rate the workplace as the most stressful element in their lives, and the potential sources of stress are many: lack of job security, abusive supervision, unpleasant co-workers, poor or insufficient pay, competition within for preferred positions and competition without for market share, difficult or impossible performance targets.

Financial stress in the sense of social hierarchy. “Keeping up with the Joneses” is the classic term, but the phenomenon it points to may stretch deep into our evolutionary if not genetic heritage. In most societies, the wealthy are celebrated and receive attention and wield influence, whereas the financially challenged and the poor do not. The wealthy, therefore, rank higher in the social hierarchy, and financial stress afflicts both those that are wealthy, since they may slip from their elevated rank or may end up working longer and harder to maintain their position, and those that consider themselves poor or simply living paycheck to paycheck, never able to move forward or save for the future.

Financial stress in the sense of perceived deprivation or inadequate options. Again, in most societies, wealth opens doors – to education, to networking with the elite and powerful, to improved health care and access to better nutritional options. Individuals born or thrust into the lower end of the spectrum are hampered at best, crippled at worst, and stress may result from the additional effort needed simply to stay above water, if not from a subjective sense of resentment and injustice. Yet individuals at the higher end may experience stress as well, stemming from a sense of guilt, unearned privilege, maintaining a certain ‘image’, or even social isolation from the remainder of society.

Financial stress in the sense of threatened self-image. The father who sees himself as “the breadwinner”, the business owner who thinks of himself as “the boss”, the society matron who thinks of herself as a member of “the elite” are all subject to a unique form of stress when their position (indeed the foundation of their sense of self-worth) is threatened by a financial downturn. Self-image is crucial to healthy psychological functioning, and financial reverses can threaten to reverse social roles and devastate private self-assessments. Ultimately such reversals may lead to better self-appraisals and a new existential honesty and realism in terms of what one is as opposed to the role one plays. But the way down can be crushing, and stressful in the extreme.

Financial stress in the sense of socialization. An individual who has been fired or laid off does not simply lose a paycheck; often sadly the repercussions are felt more widely as one may lose an entire social network. Friends at work are no longer everyday company; marriages or relationships may collapse; socializing with friends may prove impossible as finances will not allow continued participation in customary activities; indeed, even relocation may be a necessity in the search for a new position. Often the change in social circumstances can be equally or more stressful than the loss of the income source.

Financial stress in the sense of anger. One common reaction to financial stress is the inbred and understandable reaction to any threatened injury: fury and hatred. Stress often follows from threat or injury, and when threatened or injured, a common behavioral response is to hit back, and to devalue whatever is being hit. The collapse of the German economy in the Twenties was easily turned into a search for scapegoats in the 1930s, with devastating effects in the form of two world wars. The tendency to resolve stress by blaming others is common, but unhelpful; the problems remain, but the accuser is disempowered, subject to the actions and perception of others. Blaming oneself is stressful as well; however, it can prove to be a “good stress” if viewed as an empowering assumption: There is a problem, how do I fix it? This type of stress leads to innovation and growth.

Financial stress in the sense of relationship problems. Money touches everything, and even the smallest and most personal collectives like families or couples make many conflicting financial decisions every day. When those decisions spark disagreement, the relationships are subject to grueling stress, if not collapse, and are an immense source of unhappiness. Al too often, rather than working together to address the situation, a career serves as a wedge whether because the individual exorcises his stress by emotional abuse, withdrawal or other punishing behaviors, or if a position is lost, the devalued sense of self is extended to those closest, such that deep guilt and anguished inadequacy virtually paint entire families with shades of gray, harming the psyches of those helpless to stop the self-berating behaviors.

Can Financial Stress Be Overcome?

Yes. Financial stress consists of one, sometimes two, issues: the issue of the subjective perspective we hold as a financial challenge, and the actual challenge itself. Both are resolvable, though not necessarily easily.

If you are an individual who holds three jobs and enjoys fewer than four hours of sleep a night, something will quite literally have to give-sleep is essential for regeneration on a cognitive and physiological level. If you are a policeman or a soldier who lives through grueling life-threatening situations day after day to the point where the world is viewed with no feeling, then it may be time to change careers If you cannot afford to pay your mortgage, consider downsizing if at all possible-simplifying your lifestyle will yield great long-term benefits. If you are a doctor who earns a million dollars a year but loses half or more in poor investments, it is time to admit that you cannot do it all-turn your finances over to a professional. If you are staying in a poor relationship because you fear the impact to your way of life, ask yourself if the sacrifice is worth the misery. The solutions to objective financial problems like these are not necessarily easy or enjoyable, but they are clear and generally workable. Of course they involve stress because they involve change, and change is not something that is embraced by most individuals. But once change is chosen and embarked upon, stress as a rule lessens. The person who leaves a maddening job is no longer maddened by it.

What about the person who chooses the status quo? This individual must first accept that the underlying stress will never be entirely absent from such a situation, but even here the extent of the stress may be alleviated to an extent. Techniques ranging from meditation to observing and altering negative self-talk, from deep-breathing exercises to obtaining adequate sleep, better nutrition, incorporating exercise, use of self-help programs to decrease symptoms of anxiety and stress, and enhance self-worth, to developing compassion through reflection and prayer or a sense of spirituality – all are effective to some degree. At the very least, make what is unendurable endurable, and transform the unhealthy stress of victimization into the “good stress” of challenge and empowerment.

Viner, R. (1999) Putting Stress in Life: Hans Selye and the Making of Stress Theory Social Studies of Science, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jun., 1999), pp. 391-410

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“Report on the American Workforce”. United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. http://www.bls.gov/opub/rtaw/rtawhome.htm.

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Viner, R. (1999) Putting Stress in Life: Hans Selye and the Making of Stress Theory Social Studies of Science, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jun., 1999), pp. 391-410

This is a cardinal point to recall when considering effects of stress in the workplace. Many stress-related disorders have their origin in the workplace and in working conditions, and many stress-related disorders affect job performance and activity in the workplace. Job stress (sometimes also known as “job burnout”) is associated with reactions that may lead to compromised health, psychological breakdown, cardiovascular disease and death, in some cases self-inflicted. Psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression, chronic anger, maladaptive behaviors such as aggression and drug abuse, cognitive difficulties, forms of emotional strain such as fatigue and tension, all have a potentially negative impact on work performance and all, in turn, can be caused by workplace conditions that foster poor physical and psychological health. The scope of the problem and the varieties of its manifestations are vast, and while various physical and psychological health-enhancing practices can modify their impact in individual cases, fully health-enhancing results may not be attainable until objective factors such as long hours, tight deadlines, repetitive practices, and uncertain job security can be addressed.

A Major Social Problem

According to United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health report, stress is a major problem in the modern work environment. One-quarter of employees regard their jobs as the number one source of stress in their lives, fully one-third of employees report high levels of stress, and three-quarters of employees feel work involves more on-the-job stress than it did even a single generation ago. Evidence from the United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health report also indicates that stress is the major cause of turnover in organizations.

According to one analysis sponsored by an insurance organization, work-related stress is more strongly associated with health complaints than are any other source of stress in the lives of those responding. Family problems, even financial problems as such, reportedly cause less stress and less subsequent physiological damage. Numerous studies also indicate that psychologically stressful work, particularly that which gives employees little individual autonomy or control over the work process, steeply increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. Research by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and other organizations also markedly increases the risk for development of back and upper-extremity musculoskeletal disorders.

Stress can have accumulative negative effects on the health of its victims over the course of time. Stress researchers have long known of the correlation between stress and cardiovascular illnesses, but work stress has been shown to lead to related health problems as well, ranging from hypertension and coronary artery disease, to the full range of stress-induced illnesses, all of which are presenting a growing profile in the currently recessionary American workplace.

The consequences of such high levels of stress are reflected in the rising curve of increased use of health care services. The net effect is as unhealthy for businesses as for workers. Periods of disability for stress-related incapacitation last significantly longer than disability periods for other occupation-related illnesses. Workers reporting stress at work also exhibit a greater need for, and use of, subsequent health care. A 1998 study of forty-six thousand workers reported that health care costs were nearly fifty percent greater for workers reporting high levels of stress, than for workers reporting fewer stress reactions. That percentage rose to nearly one hundred and fifty percent, a cost boost of over $1700 per person per year, for workers reporting high levels of both stress and depression.

Signs of work-related stress can include mood disturbance, sleep disturbance, gastrointestinal disorders, headache, increased problems involving personal relationships with family and friends, and, in some instances, suicide. Stress may also be manifested in willful sabotage against the employee’s firm, sometimes to disastrous extremes: the term “Going Postal”, a synonym for explosive uncontrolled anger, stemmed from the repeated incidents of mass murder perpetrated against their fellow employees by postal workers who, presumably, were themselves victims of workplace-related stress.

Causes of Workplace Stress

What makes work stressful, as opposed to challenging? According to one perspective, stress arises from a mismatch between the worker and the task and/or the workplace conditions. Some workers have a very low tolerance for boredom and repetition, for instance, whereas others have a high capacity to function well under those circumstances. Some workers may function poorly under tight deadlines or restrictive micromanagement, while others thrive when precise guidelines are given. In predicting whether certain job conditions will result in stress, close profiling of the psychology of the worker is crucial: what is stressful for one worker may be welcome, even inviting, to another. This perspective underlies many employee retention strategies and survey-analytic approaches in hiring.

Here the goal is not to modify the work to better enable the workers to cope with demanding job conditions, but rather to find and place the ideal workers for the given work environment. It is a strategy that workers would be wise to employ as well. Should a worker take a job purely in order to have a job? Obviously, this is fact-specific; however, in certain cases, where possible, a worker should strongly examine whether there is a positive fit between his or her personality and the culture of the workplace. If the fit is neutral to poor, alternative positions may need to be sought, examined, and explored.

However, there is research evidence which indicates that certain working conditions will produce increased stress reactions in most people regardless of their personal inclinations in favor of particular sorts of employment. Actual physical danger on a job is not so much the difficulty as the amount of time, intensity and deadlines involved. According to one estimate, over twenty-six percent of men and over eleven percent of women in the American workplace worked 50 hours per week or more in the year 2000, when prices were lower and the economy far stronger. For women in particular these figures represent a considerable increase over the preceding decades. Moreover, there is a rising trend in the number of hours worked by employed women, according to the Department of Labor, and a major increase in the combined working hours of working couples, especially couples with young children. The resulting increased strain on personal and family relationships build up stress that inevitably loops back and hurts both work performance and the performer.

Time-related job stress is by no means restricted to Americans. The Japanese language has given the world the term for a phenomenon on the rise in that nation: karoshi – death from overwork. Surveys for conditions known to be risk factors for job stress were conducted in member states of the European Union in five-year intervals stretching from 1990 to 2000. Time analysis trends indicated a more than doubled increase in labor intensity: forty-eight percent of workers reported worked at high speeds at least one-quarter of their working time in 1990, but that increased to fifty-four percent in 1995, and to fifty-six percent in 2000. The initial rise in productivity may be impressive, but the long-term effects on the workers and the industries may be impressive in quite another way. In terms of stress and physiology, the results can resemble pressing a gas pedal to the floor: the car may move faster, but the motor burns out faster too.

Several studies present evidence suggesting that placing a greater emphasis on improving working conditions and on job redesign may be a preferred strategy to develop consistent productivity, in that it avoids the high longer-term negative costs of high employee turnover and health care utilization.

Causes of stress are by no means limited to time and workload. Status in the workplace is a well-known source of stress. Employees with very little influence or who have less control over their jobs are more likely to suffer stress than more influential employees. Yet at the same time, managers and supervisors are vulnerable to work overload as well as to the psychic costs of social distance and in some cases dislike and rejection by the workforce.

An uncertain economy, increased competition from global competitors, the speed-up resulting from instant communications network that is the internet, the fading away of socially cohesive protective organizations such as trade unions, the ongoing problems of internal politics and jockeying for positions – all combine to make the workplace a rich source of psychological challenge and, in some cases, psychological and physical illness.

Preventing Job Stress

Individual stress on the job is best addressed by using the many approaches for dealing with stress on a personal basis. But in terms of building a healthy and productive workplace, the best route may be a combination of stress management programs, job redesign, and organizational development.

The effectiveness of stress management programs can be considerable. In one set of insurance organization studies on the effects of stress prevention programs in terms of a hospital setting, employees and managers were educated about the subject of job-related stress, changes in hospital policies and procedures to reduce organizational sources of stress, and employee assistance programs were started. One such study showed that medication errors declined fifty percent once prevention activities were put into place. A second study showed a seventy percent reduction in malpractice claims in twenty-two hospitals that initiated stress prevention practices, as opposed to no reduction in a matched group of twenty-two hospitals not engaging in such practices.

Telecommuting is another way of reducing workplace stress by actively modifying the experience of the workplace. Telecommuters often report not only reduced stress but greater job satisfaction, less interest in seeking a different position, and higher performance ratings from their managers. One possible reason for the increase in positive reports may be the element of increased personal control: telecommuting workers have more control over the manner over how their work is done, and the positive benefits of increased autonomy is reflected in both their own reports and the company’s bottom line.

Again, workplace-related stress can be addressed by a wide range of the many stress-busting approaches and practices used to deal with other forms of stress. This website presents numerous stress-reducing approaches, as well examining suggestions and strategies for addressing workplace-related stress. The fact remains, stress is in many cases a response caused by a genuinely stressful environment, and so long as only the response to that environment is the object of modification, the cause can be expected to result in undesirable consequences for employees and employers both.

A significant aspect of improving job-related stress must consist of improving the actual elements of the position, and among the most effective ways of doing so have included better defining work roles and responsibilities, improving management-employee communications, reducing uncertainty regarding future career paths and retainment practices, increasing opportunities for social interaction, arranging work schedules compatible with family and other responsibilities, ensuring that work and workloads are commensurable with employee skills and stamina, and thoughtfully and intelligently designing work that provides meaning and stimulation within the employee’s framework of values.

Not an easy task, perhaps. But then, that is why they call it work.

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Blogging is the act of writing articles and commentary and putting them on a blog. A blog is short for the term “web log”. A web log, which is what the first blogs were called, were in effect online diaries or personal notebooks. The web log writer – the word was eventually shortened to “blogger” – would add dated entries about personal incidents, passing thoughts, and general reflections.

Blogs took a tremendous leap forward with the introduction of three new features. First, readers were able to set up free blog sites with providers, and send their updates directly to their sites via email or through an interface; no significant technical knowledge was (or is) needed to create and operate a blog. Next, it became possible for readers to send comments in response to the blogger’s entries, making an interactive conversation possible, and thus creating a fan base and even a community around a person or subject. Finally, readers of blogs were provided with the ability to subscribe and receive updates whenever a chosen blogger posted a new entry, and other sites could add those entries to their own sites; in effect, a blogger became an online publisher, reaching an active readership larger than that of many newspaper or magazine columnists.

Why Does Blogging Matter?

Blogs are important for several reasons, but perhaps the six most important are:

* Blogs are the direct ancestor of social media. In fact, they remain one of the main pillars of social media to this day. If social interaction sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have been called the ‘triple crown’ of social media, the blog remains the jewel in the crown. Social networking sites may be said to have begun with the linking of personal blogs to one another, and the interconnected commentary building between the blogs and their readers.

* Blogs personalized the Internet. Websites prior to blogging tended to be impersonal and informational, but blogs enabled personalization and, hence, personal branding became common, as well as a socially and financially significant practice.

* Blogs introduced public interactivity. Prior to blogs, websites were essentially either digital brochures or digital databases. Information was one-way: sites sent messages out and responses, if any, went to the site owner or webmaster by private email. With blogs, public conversations became not only acceptable but in some areas even the norm.

* Blogs allowed anyone with access to a computer with an Internet links to be an information creator and distributor on a global basis. However financially challenged one is, however lacking in technical know-how one may be, however anonymous one wishes to remain, blogging allows an individual to disseminate their opinions and views through words and pictures. Soldiers in wars and corporate whistle-blowers, aspiring poets and photographers, political radicals and alternative health practitioners, can bypass the standard informational channels and the social consensus and broadcast their views and showcase their talents.

* Blogs allowed anyone to become a self-made journalist as blogging (and later Tweeting) served as an instant on-the-spot manner in which to transmit information on events as they unfolded.

* Blogging is a way to earn income – in some cases a very lucrative source of funds; either through selling one’s own products or services or those of another vendor, via affiliate marketing. Many have created on-line courses, transformed their skillsets into coaching programs, online podcasts, books, as well as branding themselves through social media and traditional media, given sufficient time and allowing one’s individual original voice to shine through, a network of clients, customers, and peers can be assembled, some of which convert t sales, others to partnerships, and still others to lifelong friendships.

Starting Out

The best way to begin is simply that…just start. It is free, easy, and only an internet connection away. The following 10 steps will prove helpful in your early endeavors:

Study Other Blogs

Starting with a search engine, Google often being the choice of many, type in “Fifty Best Blogs” or “Most Read Blogs” or the word ‘blog’ next to any subject matter of interest. Many will appear. Search until you find several that resonate in terms of content, as well as look and feel. Make a note of those features that appeal to your sensibilities and consider what you would do differently. Take the time to read other commenters’ posts and begin to join the ‘conversation’. Become comfortable interacting with others, and note if and how the blogger responds to his or her audience.

Choose a Niche

Visit www.technorati.com or www.bloglines.com and decide upon the particular niche or subject that you feel most comfortable discussing, with which you feel most passionate and where you believe that you have something of value to contribute. Then decide how you wish to present yourself: as an authority figure, as a purveyor of goods and services, as a critic? Once you have made a decision, again, study the online behavior of others who are already doing what you have chosen. In essence, deconstruct those that are successful and use the techniques, together with your voice and original content to reach out to others to begin to create a following. As overloaded with information as the Internet can be, there is always room for an original voice providing quality information, combined with a sincere desire to share and help others. A wonderful example of an original voice is that of Chris Guillebeau, whose blog “The Art of Non-Conformity” was started as a way of tracking progress towards his goal of visiting every country in the world in five years. In the process, not only did Chris’ honest and open approach attract visitors across the globe, but in response to a growing demand, he began to create a series of practical and valuable ebooks and resources to assist others to live their unconventional life. Indeed, Chris’ presence has grown to the extent that when he travels, he inevitably meets with his loyal readers. His sincerity, articulate writings, and straightforward approach to the difficulties and joys of expressing one’s opinion, interacting with his readers, and creating an online business (albeit unintentionally in his case) is a wonderful study in what to do and what to avoid doing to succeed in this new endeavor.

Study Trends

Subscribe to the blogs that are within your field of expertise or those that interest you to maintain a presence through commenting and to keep track of various trends. To build a community, it is first necessary to understand your potential audience – both their needs and interests.

Set Up a Blog

Setting up a free blog is remarkably easy: three of the most popular are WordPress (www.wordpress.com), Blogger (www.blogger.com), and Populous (www.populous.com). Populous is the simplest and easiest; simply sign up and start posting by sending your post via email. Blogger, now owned by Google, has a wealth of different templates (themes) and integrates well with various Google features such as Adsense (for those wishing to advertise on their site), and WordPress is considered by many to be the crème de la crème of templates: capable of immensely sophisticated customization, Many companies have been created, offering customized WordPress blogs to those seeking a specific look and feel. WordPress blogs are increasingly used as an alternative to websites, including hundreds of pages, specialized features, with new applications added seemingly every week. Indeed, many are used by major corporations.

What to Write About

Of course, this is the first question asked. The answer is both simple and complex. One should obviously write quality posts about subjects for which they have something original to say, or at least ones for which they have a passion. One of the best methods for building a following and obtaining stellar free information, as well as the premier course on becoming a successful blogger, for those with great ambitions to monetize their blogs, is the remarkable Yaro Starak. His blog ‘Entrepreneurs-Journey.com’ is replete with examples from his own initial failures and eventual great triumphs. His free information alone is amongst the most valuable to any potential or even experienced blogger, and his generosity in sharing step-by-step what many label as ‘secrets’ reserved only for paying customers, is both inspirational and impressive. Yaro has been so successful in his online endeavors that he first created a course entitled ‘Blog Mastermind’ which literally walks individuals through the entire process of creating a blog, choosing a topic, learning to express thoughts in a clear and an authentic fashion, building a list, and monetizing the blog. This course offers an excellent way to start one’s blogging career. For those who wish to move to the next step, Yaro offers a course in building a membership site. Realizing that for many this may appear to be a daunting task, he has broken the process down into immensely easy-to follow steps, and is available for additional assistance should same be required. For those seeking to create an online business, which admittedly entails hard work at the outset, but which then brings in passive income for years to come, merely requiring tweaks from time to time as the face of the Internet changes and new methods of attracting followers or optimizing blogs are created, there is simply no better avenue to pursue than learning to build a membership site. If Yaro’s course, ‘Membership Site Mastermind’ is not the only one of its kind, it is unquestionably, the most informative, well-constructed, and best value for one’s hard earned dollar available in the world.

Affiliate Marketing

If one does not wish to brand themselves, sell their own products or services, or even use pay-per-click advertising wherein Google will automatically provide advertising on your site for keywords that are related to your subject matter, in consideration for payment for such ‘adwords’, with payment provided to the blogger whenever visitors click onto the ads, there is a potentially very lucrative manner in which a blogger may monetize their site: via affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing involves a vendor and a publisher whose symbiotic relationship can prove mutually beneficial. The vendor owns products and services that it wishes to distribute as widely as possible, and rather than using a sales force, publishers (i.e., bloggers or ‘affiliates’) promote the products and services of the vendors. It is important to note that affiliates should promote products and services that they have first tested themselves and believe in, both to preserve the trust of their readers and also to preserve their own integrity. Some affiliates choose to offer special bonuses (in the form of complementary information or free adjunct products, others offer discounts, and still others provide honest reviews of the pros (and cons, if any) of the products that they are promoting). Payment is often in the form of a commission for sales made through a unique affiliate link provided by the vendor. To locate vendors who are seeking affiliates, there are many avenues; to name just a few of the most popular: Clickbank, Commission Junction, Amazon, and Pepperjam.

The Value of Analytics

“Analytics” refers to various applications that show you who is visiting your blog, which pages, at which times of the day or evening, from what countries, how long they remain on the site, which pages they visit, and a variety of other information. This is, of course, immensely useful information because it allows you to see what readers are interested in and how they are reacting. If certain subjects draw significant attention, or certain products generate significant profit, these are the topics and items that should be emphasized. When using analytics, let the data help you evolve your blog so that it better serves those interests.

How do you get the information? Google Analytics (www.analytics.google.com) is generally the tool of choice, since it was developed and enhanced to cater to the very requirements set forth above.

Comments and Links

How do you get yourself known in your niche? Of course, writing excellent posts and articles which garner search engine attention is the standard approach – and for good reason – leading searchers to your site, and allowing word of mouth to spread. The caveat is that this approach takes time. A quicker way is to visit the sites that you bookmarked (as noted at the beginning of this article) and provide valuable comments on existing posts, using your name and blog URL so that people who read your comment may choose to visit your site. Linking is another excellent option: link to a site you particularly admire on your blog. This provides free publicity (and good karma!) to the linked blogger and they may in turn, link to your blog. Or you may write to fellow bloggers or even website owners and ask if they would be interested in adding a link to your blog. Links boost page rankings in the search engines, hence many blog or site owners may agree, as this will generate more traffic for them as well as more first-time readers for your blog.

Get Listed

Again, type “Blog Directory” or “Blog Archives” into Google, which will generate listings of blogs arranged by category. Submit your blog to those most suited to your subject matter. This will assist readers searching for the subject matter that you address to find your blog; indeed, just the listing alone will link back to your blog and boost your blog’s search engine ranking.

Additionally, don’t forget to establish a ‘feed’, which is a way drive your posts to other blogs, websites, social bookmarking and social media sites, which again enables your posts to be viewed by others and hence, drives more traffic and subscribers to your blog. Among the recommended feed services is www.feedburner.com.

Obtain Subscribers

What every good marketing person looks for is a list of interested prospects, and what every blogger does is seek ways to generate a list of people who care about what they have to say. The subscriber list to your post serves this function. Most blogs templates provide a module or plug-in that enables you to set up a section where visitors can subscribe to your posts directly. Others notify readers of new posts via email or newsletters. In this way, you will build treasured relationships with others, and when you have a new product or service to recommends, such a list can be worth its weight in gold (albeit perhaps not at today’s inflated prices!).

Consider the top ten blog sites of 2009 and their estimated income (and sources):

* Techcrunch – roughly $200,000 monthly (advertising banners)
* Mashable – roughly $180,000 monthly (advertising banners)
* Timothy Sykes – roughly $80,000 monthly (affiliate marketing)
* Lifehacker – roughly $60,000 monthly (advertising banners)
* Tuts Plus – roughly $55,000 monthly (advertising banners)
* Smashing Magazine – roughly $50,000 monthly (advertising banners)
* Steve Pavlina – roughly $45,000 monthly (advertising banners)
* ProBlogger – roughly $25,000 monthly (advertising banners)
* PC Mech – roughly $16,000 monthly (affiliate marketing)
* Shoemoney – roughly $12,000 monthly (private advertisers)

The numbers tell the story. It is clearly possible to create an online stream of income, and there are many ways to do so. It does require patience, hard work and adhering to certain proven strategies, but for those who have a genuine passion for a niche and who have the commitment and drive to share their insights, blunders, successes and failures with others, this is one of the more recession-proof tactics for generate income. For some it will prove to be sufficiently successful to replace or even exceed their traditional mode of income; for others it will provide an additional income stream. Do, where does one begin?

Traffic Enables Monetization

In general, bloggers make money in three different ways: (1) by selling other people’s products and services through ads placed on their blog by sponsors, networks or affiliates, (2) by selling the blogger’s own product offerings, and/or (3) by selling his or her own services and building a personal brand. The three can overlap, and there are rare popular sites with no advertising, but in most instances, serious monetization efforts focus upon the first category.

Placing ads is not the ideal place to begin, however. Yaro Starak, http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/, one of the most brilliant and accomplished blog monetizers in cyberspace, suggests that until one receives a minimum of a hundred (and preferably five hundred) visitors a day, the focus should be upon building traffic.

All things being equal, the amount of money a blogger generates will be roughly proportionate to the number of blog readers he or she attracts. A significant element to successful blog monetization involves converting visitors into buyers; however, visitors will not simply visit a site for the purposes of clicking a banner. Instead, individuals frequent blogs because of the content provided by the blog owner: intelligent commentary, insights, tips, news, interviews, video clips, podcasts, and articles. In short; excellent, well-considered, attractive content. Creating content that attracts readers generates a statistically steady percentage of those readers who will click on the ads. If only one visitor in a hundred clicks a banner or an ad which generates a dollar for the blogger, and the blogger receives one hundred visitors a day, the net income is one dollar a day. If we take that to an extreme level, if the same blogger were to receive a hundred thousand visitors a day (both new and returning visitors), the blogger would earn a thousand dollars a day – every day.

The key to generating income with a blog, then, lies in getting people to visit, re-visit, recommend, and send others to your blog. How is that done? (1) By focusing your blog on subjects and niches with a large pool of potential visitors and (2) By creating or featuring articulate, relevant, targeted, powerful content that attracts a loyal following and builds momentum by word of mouth and recommendations by fellow bloggers.

The paradox of building attractive content, however, is that while attractive content may be the single most important aspect that attracts followers, monetization is not automatic. A superb blog with high-quality content may not generate a cent in income – if one is not aware of how to locate and cultivate or enter into appropriate arrangements with the right advertisers, vendors and affiliates.

Contextual Ads, Ad Networks, and Affiliates

Online advertising is relatively simple: an ad links or ad image is placed upon one or more pages of a blog or site. Most blogs will feature such web ads on the right-hand side of the one or more pages of the blog. Those are sponsored advertisements and the company placing such ads or images pays the blog owner a certain amount of money each time a visitor clicks on the ad or image. If the person then proceeds to makes a purchase, the blog owner (who is credited with the referral because the link contains an affiliate ID identifying the sender) will receive a percentage of the subsequent sale – a percentage that can range from a half a percent to as high as 75% or more. Furthermore, if the purchase made is for a high-end product (e.g., an antique car, or a house), the percentage return on that one sale can be staggering.

Contextual Ads, Ad Networks, and Affiliates are the three main types of advertising that generate income for blogs in this manner.

Contextual Ads

A contextual ad system is one in which an advertiser places ads on a site that closely relate to the content featured therein. Google Adsense is the premier example, though Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN and firms such as Clicksor at www.clicksor.com have strong systems as well. Contextual ads allow the advertiser to scan blog content and place ads that are highly relevant to the adjacent content. Thus, if one writes a blog about skiing, Adsense will place ads for skis, skiing travel agencies, and ski instruction. If the next blog entry concerns President Obama, ads for books by or about Obama may appear.

With contextual ads, the blog owner does not have the ability to select the ad (although certain types of ads may be filtered, such as those for adult content); rather the author of the blog focuses solely upon the content and the ads are subsequently selected by the third party. Contextual ads are often a good place to start for those new to monetization, because the major sources, such as Google Adsense at www.adsense.google.com are free, simple to set up, and integrate well with traffic analysis tools such as Google Analytics.

Ad Networks

An ad network is akin to a broker group that serves as a middleman between bloggers and multiple individual advertisers. The ad network aggregates the advertisers and their requirements (the amount of site traffic they require, for instance) and connects the information and the advertiser with the blogger. With contextual ad systems, the work is basically done for the blog owner; whereas with ad networks, the blogger is not unlike a conventional newspaper or magazine publisher selling advertising space. The owner provides selected places (at selected prices) on the blog for advertisers to place their ads and waits to hear from advertisers that wish to utilize that particular space.

Ad networks worth considering include Blogads at www.blogads.com and Blogvertise at www.blogvertise.com. Text-Link-Ads is also a well regarded broker that specializes in text ad placement: the Text-Link-Ads service takes a percentage of revenues generated by the ad, but the simplicity is comparable to Adsense: install a plug-in (assuming that one is using a WordPress theme), place a pre-written snippet of code in the blog template indicating where the text links should appear, and Text-Link-Ads handles connects the dots.

Affiliate Programs

Affiliate programs are solely focused upon one product or service, and are often the program of choice for serious bloggers, since they generally pay significantly more than contextual ad programs. There is a catch, of sorts: while contextual programs pay ‘per click’, affiliate programs tend to pay per purchase or sign-up. That may mean less immediate income, but it much higher rates of return. A Google Adsense contextual ad that takes a visitor to a computer site may only result in single nickel-per-click payment to the blogger (but lead to a $2,000 laptop sale for the advertiser). In comparison, placing ads for the advertiser as an affiliate may involve an arrangement where the affiliate receives, say, 10% or 20% or 60% of the sale — $200, $400, or $1,200 for each sale. Dozens of such payments, for a variety of high-ticket products or services, can accumulate rapidly to genuine wealth.

A significant benefit to affiliate programs is recurring passive income. Yaro Starak, who runs two excellent programs for monetizing blogs and building membership sites (and for which this site is an affiliate for his passion, generosity, and superb success enjoyed by his devoted followers) http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/go.php?offer=centered33&pid=1 (Blog Mastermind) and http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/go.php?offer=centered33&pid=3 (Membership Site Mastermind) places recursive affiliate income at the head of his personal list of ways to monetize blogs. Recursive programs are ones in which an individual purchases a product or service that involves monthly payments, similar to a newsletter subscription or membership fee, for the privilege of obtaining new and enhanced information offerings, access to forums of like-minded individuals, and the ability to directly reach out to the experts for questions specific to your blog or site. “Recursive programs are the best type of affiliate program,” writes Starak. “When you sell a continuity product – something people pay for on a regular basis to maintain their membership – you are also paid an affiliate commission on a regular basis. If you build up enough recursive affiliate sales you can secure a stable income source.”

The advantages of affiliate marketing, contextual, networked, or direct, are many: products, fulfillment and customer service issues are all handled by others. Affiliate ads do not have to be designed nor links coded, nor does it generally a cost a cent to become an affiliate – or even to set up a blog, if one uses a free service such as WordPress, Blogger, or Posterous. The blogger simply concentrates on creating quality, relevant, useful information, generated with his or her unique perspective and income can literally be generated even as one sleeps.

How do you connect with the prime companies offering affiliate programs? One way is to look at the ads featured on the model blogs that you should be studying, contacting the advertisers directly and checking to see if they offer an affiliate program. Offervault at www.offervault.com provides a database of top affiliate programs, and a search function that lets one quickly find relevant products and offers to promote. Organizations such as Commission Junction and Linkshare connect publishers (bloggers) to advertisers, and affiliate programs such as those offered by Amazon and the eBay Partner Network (EPN) allow sales of Amazon and eBay products and collect commissions directly from the blog or site,

Some of the most popular money-making blogs in cyberspace, like Yaro Starak’s sites noted above or Problogger at www.problogger.com, are focused upon the subject of monetizing blogs and often feature the most up-to-the-minute news regarding excellent affiliate opportunities. Of course, as noted above, mentoring is essential for those seeking to optimize their monetization strategies: Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind blog monetization mentoring program at http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/go.php?offer=centered33&pid=1 is widely considered to be amongst the best.

Other Ways to Monetize a Blog

Affiliate links allow you to sell other people’s products, but what if you desire to sell your own products or services? Ebooks are a popular way of sharing information with others, as are software applications, or if one is a craftsperson or artist, he or she can sell the products created via a blog. Similarly, if an employee or owner of an offline business blogs on behalf of a company, readers can simply be directed to the product or service page.

Once product and direct sales enter the picture – and even if they do not – it is often wise to go beyond the standard prefabricated blog service providers such as WordPress and build a unique blog site, or a combination blog/website. Hiring independent web designers or design firms can be pricey, and if the designers are not familiar with affiliate marketing, results can all too easily be disappointing. Unless you happen to be a highly competent designer, web programmer, and a pro affiliate marketer rolled into one, by far the best alternative is to have your site built by an affiliate-site oriented; SEO optimized site-building service with forums and support services. Site Build It! at http://affiliatemarketing.sitesell.com is, bar none, the leader in the field, and has received duly deserved rave reviews for affordability, effectiveness, and results for enabling sites to rank highly in search engine results. The testimonials are remarkable, and the degree of success for the ‘holy grail’ of Google ranking is unparalleled and the only such service endorsed by this site: http://www.sitesell.com/centered.html Is this the most inexpensive route? No. Do they promise instant success? No. Will it provide the results that you are seeking? We wholeheartedly believe that it will, and the 30-day money-back guarantee is a testimonial to the company’s integrity.

One also should not underestimate the monetary returns that can stem from using a blog for personal professional promotion. A blog can serve many functions, and chief amongst them is the ability to have a globally accessible 24/7 presence; wherein your blog posts or articles demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in one or more given areas. By revealing something about your tastes, preferences and character a relationship of trust begins to be established between author and reader, which eventually may morph into a vendor-customer relationship. What is essential is that one never lose the trust of the customer and this is accomplished by adhering to a code of ethics with respect to the information disseminated and products and services provided or endorsed.

As a separate note, it is even possible to monetize a blog through donations. Many individual bloggers and nonprofit charities with blog components do indeed realize a substantive income through simple donations requested and received.

Providing Value

But the key in each case lies in providing value. When such value is of the sort that appeals to the needs, interests or issues facing one or more groups, and the steps, resources and mentors noted above are followed, so too will income be attracted. Study your targeted audience, write from the heart, offer value, and use your time wisely. Income, friendships, partnerships and a rewarding business will surely follow.

Perhaps that overstates it. But the reaction on Facebook and Twitter to the research of Dr. Tracy Alloway of the University of Stirling in Scotland proved a prime example of social psychology in action: headlines similar to the above were soon a topic of choice on both applications and discussed, linked to and retweeted passionately, as communities of agreement and disagreement formed and global arguments, agreement, commentary and suggestion soared. “Smarter or dumber” might be arguable psychological effects of the two social media giants, but “lonelier and less communicative” most certainly are not: whatever else the psychological effects of social media may be, they unquestionably engage. And what the psychological effects of that engagement may be is a study in progress – but one that is already yielding data.

Dr. Alloway conceded that her study results are much more focused in scope than the more general theses generated by its popularizers. In the course of developing a working memory training program for slow learners between the ages of eleven to fourteen, Alloway learned that Facebook usage both improved working memory (“the structures and processes used for temporarily storing and manipulating information in short-term memory”) and even enhanced the children’s IQ scores. Video games, particularly if they involved planning and strategy, also had positive results.

YouTube and Twitter, by contrast, had negative effects on working memory. Dr. Alloway’s analysis: “On Twitter you receive an endless stream of information, but it’s also very succinct. You don’t have to process that information. Your attention span is being reduced and you’re not engaging your brain and improving nerve connections.”

Of course, results based on one study of one group of culturally specific schoolchildren may not generalize to adults across the globe, much less, say, academic and corporate Twitter analysts who analyze Twtitter usage with very strategic planning goals indeed, or trends analysts studying Twitter precisely to exhume patterns, processes and connections. (According to Twitter research by @indymike, users leveraging Twitter as a marketing channel experience an average 4% click-through rate, as compared to Facebook’s 0.1% click-through rate. So the ongoing analytic attention of marketers is assured.) It may be fair to say that the nature of the usage may have had more to do with the cognitive results than the medium.

Destructions of Empathy

But psychological concerns about Twitter and other social media are not restricted to their comparative usage, The Baroness Doctor Susan Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College, Oxford and director of the Royal Institution, testified before members of the British House Of Lords that social media risks “infantilizing the mid-21st century mind, leaving it characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize and a shaky sense of identity, ” adding that “If the young brain is exposed from the outset to a world of fast action and reaction… such rapid interchange might accustom the brain to operate over such timescales. Perhaps when in the real world such responses are not immediately forthcoming, we will see such behaviors and call them attention-deficit disorder. It might be helpful to investigate whether the near total submersion of our culture in [such] technologies over the last decade might in some way be linked to the threefold increase over this period in prescriptions for methylphenidate, the drug prescribed for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.”

The Baroness also warned of a risk of loss of empathy owing to the loss of what in linguistic theory are called “phatics”: the many rich and subtle facial and auditory gestures and visual cues that modify and clarify speech communication. The chiding remark accompanied by a smile communicates affection, not criticism. Sound advice delivered in an angry shout communicates contempt rather than compassion. Such metalinguistic grace notes enable complex emotional communication to flourish, and it cannot flourish in a medium that restricts communications to limited sensory channels – or to the 140 characters of a Twitter post. As a new generation slowly becomes more and more used to interacting without metalinguistic nuances, will we see a rise of limited empathy and borderline lack of affect? Indeed, may this be a contributing cause to the fearsome rise of autism and Asperger’s syndrome among the young?

Autism and Interactivity

An answer to that question may be suggested in studies done involving another social media, and the answer is a – somewhat complex – no. Social media is comprised of virtual worlds, and the studies involved observing the behavior of autistic children interacting with others on Second Life (a 2-dimensional virtual universe). Far from becoming less social, it was found not only that autistic users of the interactive social platform engaged other more and became more communicative inside the virtual environment, but that the increased sociability generalized and showed an increasing presence in “real life”.

It has been theorized that the wealth of data in regular metalinguistic communication is perceived by the autistic as overload and is the cause fostering them to withdraw. Rather, the stripping away of tonality and expression in virtual world environments enables easier and safer interactions, and so allows enhanced socialization to take place, and indeed, to generalize and flourish. If so, it may well be true that individuals less fluent with metalinguistic cues – such as children – may be more inclined to limited metalinguistic communications media like video games, social media and Twitter. Indeed, a Myers-Briggs test Certified administrator noted, “I believe a lot of people in the Twitterverse are not behaving according to their type in the social media world. This forum allows those who do not normally openly network or get out in larger social audiences to feel completely comfortable in the privacy of their home or office by themselves to connect in ways they wouldn’t in person.” And the very practice of increased communicative experience may well lead them to greater real-world interactivity.

Satisfying Hard-Wired Psychological Needs

Of course, a reduction in distracting nonverbal cues is hardly the only attraction psychologists are finding in Twitter. Evolutionary psychologists see such social media as a hard-wired need for a social community. For many thousands if not millions of years, human beings and their genetic predecessors lived and endured in tight tribal units of roughly thirty to seventy people. Two hundred and fifty is the maximum number; hold some behavioral scientists, of individuals with whom we can have genuine ongoing interpersonal relations. Such psychologists, and not a few social critics, note that when the Industrial Revolution tore the tribe-like extended family apart in order to move workers into urban environments and produce a mobile workforce, a deep evolutionary need for community was frustrated, and surrogates were (and are) continually being sought, in subcultures, churches, and, most recently, the Twitterverse.

Another possibly evolutionary but certainly psychological need is the need for attention. Here too, the micro-celebrity status offered by twittering is seductive. Twitter is, among other things, the recognition that we have all suddenly developed the capacity to become recognized, even famous. Tweet, and literally anyone in the world with Internet access can find you, follow you, hear your opinions, observe your cares, track the minutiae of your day-to-day life: in short, to satisfy the longing for attention and even narcissism that is an element of all psychological life. The Twitterer feels that others care what he or she does and says – and is. Why else would they bother to follow? A large group of followers is a democracy that serves to validate one’s significance. But, warn some researchers, this is an unstable platform of validation: “We are the most narcissistic age ever,” says cognitive neuropsychologist Dr. David Lewis, director of research based at the University of Sussex. “Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby, unless people recognize you, you cease to exist. It may stave off insecurity in the short term, but it won’t cure it.”

The Mysticism of Twitter

Not all psychologists are as guarded in their appreciation as Lewis. R.D. Laing once observed that “Mystics and schizophrenics find themselves in the same ocean, but the mystics swim whereas the schizophrenics drown.” Tweeting may be a warning of potential schizophrenic behaviors for some, but Psychology Today author Moses Ma clearly leans toward the mystical: finding Twitter to be by no means a poor way to satisfy the higher levels of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Ma rises to the rhapsodic in his appreciation: “When I see a singing bird, I can feel the beauty of life. Now see that twitter tweets are simply the songs of this odd and beautiful species called homo sapien. Now imagine the millions of twitter users, each in their own beautiful and tragic and tearful and happy road of “pain and then no pain”. Let this feeling of beauty multiply, like maybe after years of traveling – you arrive at a place in time and space, so you can experience an entire rainforest of rare birds in song… To me, the Twitterverse is like a river of human awareness, composed of billions of tiny 140 character molecules – each a snapshot of life or a thought or a reflection. A river of pure information that equals energy, according to the laws of quantum thermodynamics and stochastic processes. A river of life flowing by us as we meditate at its bank…”

Twitter As a Tool for Psychological Analysis

Whatever Twitter’s intrinsic nature, its value as a tool for psychological analysis is certain, and growing. The same writer, speaking of Twitter, notes, “Twitter is definitely designed to encourage addictive usage. When I designed [video] games, we would measure eyeblink rates to see if the player was entering a state of “flow” during gameplay. If the blink rate dropped precipitously after a few minutes of play, the game would most likely be a hit. And if you test a heavy twitter user in the same way, I’ll bet that a similar thing is happening – a drop in the blink rate, some pupil dilation, and a surge in neuro-adrenaline.” Such hypotheses are the stuff of research to come.

But one does not have to be a professional researcher to gather psychological data, or benefit by same. One of the most interesting psychological tools relating to Twitter is as fascinating as it is free: researcher Dan Zarella’s TweetPsych. Tweet Psych (at www.tweetpsych.om) uses the LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) and RID (Regressive Imagery Dictionary) modalities to build up a psychological profile of a tweet poster based on the linguistic and “primordial” content of their Tweets. The service is free, simple to use – you merely type in your twitter user name or the name of someone whose psychological profile you would like to know more about – and upon analyzing the twitterer’s last 1000 tweets, presents a brief psychological profile of the user’s “primordial” interests and the leading emotional and characterological aspects the twitterer presents – aggression, detachment, sensuality, and so on. Interestingly, Zarella’s application also searches the Twitterverse and finds other twitterers whose psychological profile are the nearest match to your own, or to the person being profiled.

From social networking to psychological networking? Such things are not possibilities lying in the future; it is here now, and it is ours to use. And as Twitter and its descendant applications grow and develop, so will the understanding we have of ourselves, and how we act and interact in a brave and ever-renewing new world.

http://tweetpsych.com/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/6147668/Facebook-enhances-intelligence-but-Twitter-diminishes-it-claims-psychologist.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/5106466/Baroness-Greenfield-why-a-Twittericulum-will-only-do-our-children-harm.html

Greenfield, Susan. Tomorrow’s People: How 21st Century Technology is Changing the Way we Think and Feel. London: Allen Lane. pp. 304 pages. (2003)

http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-tao-innovation/200903/understanding-the-psychology-twitter

http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-tao-innovation/200904/more-the-psychology-twitter

Virtual World Teaches Real-World Skills: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7012645