How to Earn Your First Love Dollar (Blog)

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by ghfever

people aren't to click happy when it comes to ads.

That belief is your problem right there. You've convinced yourself that people aren't interested in clicking on ads, and that's just not true.

You probably also believe that ads are a nuisance. They're not.

Contextual ads are one of the best things you could ever ask for. You go to a site like Steve's where there is nothing for sale, and you're presented with opportunities to click on ads for products and services related to the topic you're reading about. How awesome is that?!

If I'm reading an article on LUCID DREAMING for example and I'm given the OPPORTUNITY to see 4-5 AdSense ads which are related to LUCID DREAMING, isn't that awesome!? I'm obviously interested in the subject otherwise I wouldn't be reading the article...so if someone's adverting a complete course on lucid dreaming, a lucid dreaming induction device (NovaDreamer), and a "How to Lucid Dream DVD Set" isn't that tremendous value to me?

If I'm not interested, I won't click on the ads. If I am interested in a "NovaDreamer" device, maybe I'll click on the ad and purchase the product.

Because the ads are highly targeted via contextual advertising, It also helps the company I'm purchasing from to not have to spend $2937423874 / year on untargetted advertising which keeps the cost of the product down.

I think the challenge most people have making money online is thinking that the "ads" on their site are some kind of "trickery" or "scam" and that by clicking on them people lose value. In fact that's not true... you're doing people a service by putting in front of them relevant ads to your topic which lead to products that will help to enhance their life.

So, in your example...are there no DVD Sets people could buy for that Soap Opera? Are there no posters? What about clothing from the show? There have to be products or services related to the show that people might be interested in.

You just need to get rid of your belief that you're doing people injustice by having relevant ads on your site.

[kpollock]

My likes are all very abstract. Optimising, any kind. Make it faster/cheaper/smaller. Prioritising. Abstraction. Exercising logic...

I am a software developer - a pretty good match, but I am really worn out by the "running to stand still". That you are no better after 15 years than after 5 - and only even stay as good through constant effort. Especially since I am still being asked to write exactly the same applications - only the technology varies...

We (the developers), I think, made it that way when we were young, made a field where age and experience mattered less than raw talent...

Still, I'll keep at it, tryign to work it out and trying to notice what comes up again and again...

[frntk]

How can I earn an extra dollar from exercising? Hmmm…

You probably already thougth about this, but you cuould do a 30 day trial for some exercising program like CrossFit or something, that may drive some good traffic, and therefore, love dollars

[Bonkers]

Originally Posted by kpollock

My likes are all very abstract. Optimising, any kind. Make it faster/cheaper/smaller. Prioritising. Abstraction. Exercising logic...

I am a software developer - a pretty good match, but I am really worn out by the "running to stand still". That you are no better after 15 years than after 5 - and only even stay as good through constant effort. Especially since I am still being asked to write exactly the same applications - only the technology varies...

We (the developers), I think, made it that way when we were young, made a field where age and experience mattered less than raw talent...

Still, I'll keep at it, tryign to work it out and trying to notice what comes up again and again...

Wow exactly how I think! Im a programmer too and highly focused on improving the company im at, love building better, faster more efficient tools than ever (just the whole programming part bores me...). Just after this article I started writing down what I love to see if I can find job I'll love and came up with the following: (Train of thought, hopefully may spark an idea in you)

What do I love doing:

- Love playing with stats and numbers, constantly tweaking and improving and evolving
- Working on making a business as efficient and productive as possible
- Constantly evolving and improving the way I do things to make it better for others to learn from (like code), easier for others to use (tools) and more efficient, fast and effective than ever. I love constant growth and being in a job where I can constantly push a business to grow and using the powers of kaizan to help them grow.

Individual consulting for businesses!! I love working with businesses to find out where more growth could be achieved, where they can improve their processes to be more efficient in what they do, how they can help serve people better, where their downfalls are and I can go over all their stats, finance stats and so on over the past while and find the weak points, find where it could be improved and so on . I'd love to do that!

I can even offer it for free in the beginning, just go around to businesses and talk to them about how their business could be improved to new levels, then work on implementing solutions to help them grow that they couldn't see. I'll just go around to small businesses around here first and see who would like to take me up, then I can offer free services and if they feel I'm worth the money (like I manage to improve their business) then they are allowed to pay me .

Also A Blog on business growth! Ways to grow and refine processes and improve the business, things that are implemented by other top companies like google, microsoft, apple, toyota that help them constantly improve and refine their styles and grow their businesses to new heights . I can then blog about my travels and what I've done to help businesses out (obviously not revealing anything confidential) and how other people reading this blog can improve their own businesses with my teachings . It also establishes credibility in the field of business growth and can have it as something to show people when they ask what I've done before (we'll I've blogged about growing your business for a while however I'm looking to move into the consulting market and would just like some referrals and to know that im helping people out, you don't need to implement my advice by any means, it's simply suggestions that could help your business grow more than ever).

Cheers, Tim

[kpollock]

Tim,

Certainly food for thought. I do like writing toolsets/frameworks better than anything else in the development line of work. I like client interaction too (though not office/company politics!). The whole point of the job, as I see it, is to make software that makes people's jobs easier/quicker/better informed. We too rarely get the chance to to that for our own - but when we do do so, the gain obviously multiplies!

Maybe I just need to get out of banks for a while... I have the possibility of an independent project coming up, connected with one of my interests. I think that might be the chance to try it and see...

[kpollock]

oh yeah, and I also love it when, in the course of analysis, I can come up with some easy process change that they could implement *right now* - even if it might not need me to develop anything :-).

[Jonathan Browne]

I tried making love to a dollar and not only did it fail to work for me, but it was pretty painful.

I'm pretty dissapointed steve. You should totally not be recommending people make love to money. Thats pretty sick.

Ya'll should totally use your first love dollar to blow a gram or two of cocaine. Thats how a G does it.

Oh and in case anyone wondering i'm not on any drugs im just pretty elated and goofy because I finally finished mastering my rap mixtape and I made $20 love dollars from selling it at the mall on the first day.

I'm pretty sure once the ladies hear some of the songs on there i'll be getting a lot more than just "love dollars" too.

[codefreeze]

Another fantastic article which I missed first time around. I must admit I was somewhat skeptical about the whole idea of "love dollars", but decided to try it out. I love walking, so I got a round delivering free papers near where my children live. I go out in the evening and my daughter comes with me. I make £7.50, I give the money to her. Time with my daughter - priceless.

Thanks again Steve. Also Erin, that was useful advice up there about finding your passion - more on that very important topic please!

[dbstraight]

I'm sure they didn't think of it as such, and it probably doesn't mean anything special to them... but I think I gave someone a [first] love dollar today.

I was hanging out with some friends at a local coffeehouse where they have musicians play every night, and the kid who works there (actually, I'm not even entirely certain he works there) and brings the tip basket around to ask people to give tips for the band came by and I put a dollar in (well... I guess this is a love dollar for the musician, but it's the kid I'm talking about here!). Then, just joking around he said if I gave HIM a dollar, he'd tell me all about Pink Floyd (one of my friend's was wearing a Pink Floyd shirt). I asked him how long he'd talk about them, and when he said 5 minutes, I pulled a dollar out of wallet (which was actually the rest of my cash and about 1% of my bank account at the moment...) and told him he was on. He came back after making the rounds with the tip basket, and I set a 5 minute timer on my watch (to may sure I got my money's worth ) and he started. After finishing, he took the dollar and went and showed his friends that he had just gotten paid to talk about Pink Floyd. (And based on how much he knew, it was clear he really liked Pink Floyd!)

I thought about Steve's article almost immediately. If you'd asked me yesterday if I thought a teenage kid could get paid to talk about one of their favorite bands in a coffeehouse, I would've said no. I certainly never would've guessed that I would be the one who made it possible!

I imagine he probably didn't think anyone would actually give him a dollar to talk about a band he likes either.

[Gnosis]

Is Adsense still your major source of income from your blog?

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

For details on how I've made money from blogging, see:
How to Make Money From Your Blog

That article is a bit dated, but it will give you the general idea.

Today my income is a lot more diversified. Adsense is no longer the biggest contributor. Most of my income now comes from profit-splitting deals with publishers whose products I recommend.

This month Learning Strategies is re-running their 59% PhotoReading discount for StevePavlina.com visitors. I plan to make a blog post about it tomorrow. I learned PhotoReading two years ago and still apply it today, so it was a no-brainer for me to recommend it. Visitors who buy it get a hefty discount, Learning Strategies gains new customers, and I earn a commission, so it's a nice win-win-win arrangement. It's also a good way for me to keep my articles and podcasts free for everyone.

I evaluate TONS of personal development products and only recommend a small percentage of them because I'm incredibly picky. Publishers send me new items every week, so I always have a huge stock of materials to go through.

Currently I'm reviewing a new Learning Strategies program with Jack Canfield on the Law of Attraction -- 22 CDs plus an extensive workbook. I'm about halfway through it.

I love that I now have a way to generate income from studying personal development materials, which has been a passion of mine for more than 15 years. Before I ran this site, I read hundreds of books and went through dozens of audio programs that I paid a lot of money to buy... never realizing that I could actually earn money from reviewing and recommending the best products I encounter... simply by working out a profit-splitting deal with the publisher.

It's pretty funny how such great income-generating ideas will stare us in the face for years before we even notice them.

[Savage]

Originally Posted by Gnosis

Is Adsense still your major source of income from your blog?

Nope, not for the past two years.

[supertom]

what are the aspects of love ??

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by supertom

what are the aspects of love ??

You'll find out if you buy Steve's book. (Using my referral link. )

(Just kidding. That's just a regular, non-referral link--much to the chagrin of my bank balance. I'd be breaching the forum rules, or be pretty close to it, if I used a referral link since, while this post is intended to be humorous, there's too much "grey area" for the mods to make a reasonable decision about whether my post is legit humour or just self-promotion if I include a referral link.)

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by impaul99

That belief is your problem right there. You've convinced yourself that people aren't interested in clicking on ads, and that's just not true.

You probably also believe that ads are a nuisance. They're not.

Contextual ads are one of the best things you could ever ask for. You go to a site like Steve's where there is nothing for sale, and you're presented with opportunities to click on ads for products and services related to the topic you're reading about. How awesome is that?!

If I'm reading an article on LUCID DREAMING for example and I'm given the OPPORTUNITY to see 4-5 AdSense ads which are related to LUCID DREAMING, isn't that awesome!? I'm obviously interested in the subject otherwise I wouldn't be reading the article...so if someone's adverting a complete course on lucid dreaming, a lucid dreaming induction device (NovaDreamer), and a "How to Lucid Dream DVD Set" isn't that tremendous value to me?

If I'm not interested, I won't click on the ads. If I am interested in a "NovaDreamer" device, maybe I'll click on the ad and purchase the product.

Because the ads are highly targeted via contextual advertising, It also helps the company I'm purchasing from to not have to spend $2937423874 / year on untargetted advertising which keeps the cost of the product down.

I think the challenge most people have making money online is thinking that the "ads" on their site are some kind of "trickery" or "scam" and that by clicking on them people lose value. In fact that's not true... you're doing people a service by putting in front of them relevant ads to your topic which lead to products that will help to enhance their life.

So, in your example...are there no DVD Sets people could buy for that Soap Opera? Are there no posters? What about clothing from the show? There have to be products or services related to the show that people might be interested in.

You just need to get rid of your belief that you're doing people injustice by having relevant ads on your site.

Paul's take is one take on the topic of ads.

For me, I think it's kind of unrealistic to think ads are going to generate a sale. I think what you're really paying for when you create a Google Adsense ad is the exposure that is created by the great vehicle that is the Google Adsense system. Essentially, you're paying Google for the value you created, since they set up the system, and while it may give more value to others, that's their long-term strategy for making cash.

That explanation works for me, since it holds up from more scenarios. The "people buy products" explanation breaks pretty easily. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just incomplete. And I'm also not saying that Paul didn't allude to it, so all you "but Paul didn't imply that!" people can relax.

When we *really* get down to it, all we're doing is telling ourselves things to make ourselves happy. Even if they are aligned with truth, authenticity and alignment are the primary forces at work there. Seems there's something to self delusion after all! (Although at a certain level of awareness you can only delude yourself into believing something if there is truth in it but, yeah, you get the joke. Or maybe you don't. But as Gretzky would say, you miss all the shots you don't take.)

[Lenie]

One of my all-time favorite articles here, ever.

[supertom]

Originally Posted by Bruce Achterberg

You'll find out if you buy Steve's book. (Using my referral link. )

(Just kidding. That's just a regular, non-referral link--much to the chagrin of my bank balance. I'd be breaching the forum rules, or be pretty close to it, if I used a referral link since, while this post is intended to be humorous, there's too much "grey area" for the mods to make a reasonable decision about whether my post is legit humour or just self-promotion if I include a referral link.)

i know the aspects of truth and power, i was wondering if he will have aspects for courage, oneness etc since they are secondary

[Monergy]

It's a great concept to make money from doing the things you love. Without being aware of it, i think that all of us gravitate to that mindset. But thanks, Steve, for explicitly pointing this out.

[smartile]

Wow!

What a fantastic community here... Love money everywhere.

I just got an idea today that will probably pocket my first Love Dollar with some extra 0000's behind it. I had totally missed this opportunity until today. Ironically, I ran into this post....

[JulietduPreez]

Hi Steve

Synchronicity!
We have just read your article titled "How to Earn your First Love Dollar". Immediately we thought, well, let's check our AdSense account. Wow! US$1.08 - our first $1 for doing what we love!

Not that it should surprise us, because that, in part, is what our website is all about; to be more precise, "affirmations". We have developed a (free) application for the use of affirmations and manifestation. This can make an incredible difference in people's lives and we want to spread it was widely as possible.

Perhaps you would like to take a look? Our website is CodeFlow. We would really appreciate feedback from you as you have been such an inspiration to our work. Our website has been live for only a few weeks and we continuously want to (and are) improving and developing both the site and the application.

This is the most exciting time of our lives!

Regards
Juliet