5 Easy Ways to Make Money on Instagram

With over 300 million users sharing more than 70 million photos and videos each and every day  it’s not all that surprising to realize that several big Instagram users are raking in big bucks from the millions of people who follow them and engage with their posts.

What’s even more inspiring is that most of them are just normal people who stayed persistent with posting and interacting on their accounts to build up their followers over time.

If you love interacting on Instagram and have a sizeable number of engaged followers, or if you’re at least willing to put in the time and effort to start building it up, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to start making hundreds or even thousands of dollars from this one social platform alone.

There are lots of different routes you can take to start earning, and while they may seem “easy” on the surface, keep in mind that any kind of online income generation strategy takes time and work before you start seeing real results.

Here are five popular options you have to start making money on Instagram relatively quickly if you have great posts and/or a big following.

1. Sell your Instagram photos to brands that want to use them.

If you just love taking photos with your mobile device and consider them to be of pretty high quality before posting them to Instagram, then it’s very possible that you could start licensing your photos to companies that are willing to pay to use them for their own brand building purposes.

Foap is a popular online photography marketplace that let’s you do just that. You can sign up for free, create a new user profile, build your portfolio to start attracting buyers, and browse through the “Missions” section for high paying projects that companies are specifically looking for.

This is perhaps the easiest way to start making money from the existing Instagram photos you have, because you don’t necessarily need to have a huge following to do it. All photos cost $10, and the only major downside here is that Foap takes half of it.

Payments are delivered to you by PayPal, and since it’s a community-based marketplace, you can browse other users’ photos, follow the ones you like to see their photography in your home feed, and also give and receive feedback. You can check out this user profile for an example of what a typical profile might look like.

Foap Missions always start at $100 and go up from there, so if your submission is chosen and purchased by the company that launched the Mission, you could earn quite a bit. Just keep in mind you’ll be competing with several other users and their submissions as well.

2. Earn commissions for selling other companies’ products or capturing leads.

Selling other companies’ products and services or capturing leads for them is another fast and easy way to start making money on Instagram. Peerfly is a popular affiliate network that allows you to sign up and get started for free.

Once approved, you’ll be able to browse their current promotional offers listed as “Social” under the “Traffic Methods” tab. You can then sort through the offers by pay, earnings per click (EPC), or click-through rate (CR) to choose something you’d like to promote.

All you need to do to start promoting an offer is copy the unique URL and paste it in your Instagram bio’s website section. When other users’ click on it to check it out, you could earn a commission if they decide to enter their personal information (like their email address) or buy something. 

What’s great about a network like Peerfly is that you can easily earn a few bucks just for capturing leads, which is much easier than making sales.

You may have to request approval from Peerfly first before you can start promoting, however, but getting approved is usually no problem. Make sure you stick to the offers listed under the social traffic methods only, since Instagram is a social platform

3. Capture email subscribers and refer them to affiliate links (or your own products).

If you do pretty well with capturing leads for an affiliate or CPA network like Peerfly, you might want to consider building your own email list of leads. MailChimp is popular email list-building service that lets you gather up to 2,000 email subscribers for free. You can also create and schedule emails to be sent out to your subscribers, which you can use to send them purchase links to affiliate products or even your own products that they may be interested in buying.

MailChimp is a fantastic tool to choose for this, because it lets you easily build your own landing page forms and email templates so you can make it look and say exactly what you want. Once you have your landing page set up, you can simply copy and paste the URL into your Instagram bio’s website link

Instead of sending leads to another company’s email form, you’ll be sending them to your own. A good example to check out is@home_business_profits, who’s currently sending people to his own email submit form in the website section of his profile.

You won’t make a couple bucks for every user that signs up, but you’ll have the ability to keep in touch with subscribers by email, build a relationship with them, and sell to them again and again as long as they decide to stay on your list.

MailChimp makes it easy for beginners to get started, but if you end up collecting 2,000 subscribers or maybe want more options to interact with your list, you may need to sign up for one of MailChimp’s premium packages.

4. Join a multi-level marketing company to build your own team of network marketers.

Instagram is a very open and social place to show off visual content, making it a premiere platform for inspiring people and making lots of new friends.

There are countless network marketers who have built solid businesses through Instagram alone, selling the products of the MLM companies they’re promoting to users who love looking at their photos or videos. Many of them even end up bringing on new people they meet on Instagram to join their teams.

Since there’s such a massive fitness community that’s so incredibly active on Instagram, Team Beachbody is a good MLM company to consider working with.

You can easily start posting photos of your healthy meals, your workout routines, and anything that might offer inspiration or motivation to followers who want to get in shape. Don’t forget to provide the URL in your bio to your network marketing website or product link, and make sure to include some contact information in case users have questions.

There are tons of accounts out there to check out how it’s done, but a popular one in particular you can check out is  specifically for Team Beachbody network marketing.

Network marketing on Instagram may not be as easy as some of the options presented above, but if you’re a hard worker and avid user of the products you’re promoting, it can quickly become a very lucrative home business.

The major downside here is that most MLM companies require you to invest in a starter package and/or monthly fees to stay active and promote their stuff. On the upside, you’ll be placed under another team member who can help you start earning and building your own team.

5. Connect with advertisers that are willing to sponsor influential Instagram users.

This last Instagram money-making tactic is really only easy if you’ve got the followers and engagement to show for it. So if you’re someone who has ideally tens of thousands of followers or more, and you can rack up lots of likes and comments within minutes of posting, then you may be in good position to try getting at least a few good sponsorship deals from companies that would be willing to pay you to promote their brand to your audience.

You could reach out to companies’ marketing departments directly, or you could try applying to The Mobile Media Lab instead — a creative agency specifically focused on bringing influential Instagram users and advertisers together.

If chosen, you could easily start earning hundreds or thousands of dollars for a single post that features a product from big brands like Coach, Expedia, Timex, Puma, and others. @weworethat is a massively popular Instagram account that pulls in over six figures in sponsorships from apparel and accessory companies that want their products featured on her account.

Making money here is the easy part — building a huge, loyal following is obviously not so easy. The good news is you may be able to score a few smaller sponsorships even if you have below 100,000 followers. The Mobile Media Lab has a sign-up form to apply to work with them, but given that they’re only interested in working with the most influential Instagram users, there’s no guarantee you’ll be approved.

Instagram has really opened up some new doors for business owners and entrepreneurs all over the world. Whether you’re just a student looking to make a few extra bucks on the side, or the CEO of an international company looking to build its brand and reach a new audience, Instagram can help you do it.

5 Pages Every Blog Should Include

conversation inspired me to write this post. I remember that when I started blogging with my first website, I was always looking for different elements to add to my site. It took time to find out and search for pages that I needed to add, but after adding them it made it feel a lot more professional.

So here is a list of 20 pages that I feel that every blog should have.

1.Home Page

This may seem like a blatantly obvious one to include, and you would be right! The reason why I have listed the ‘Home Page’ is to draw your attention to it. The home page is THE most important page of your entire website! THE MOST IMPORTANT!!! This is the page that everyone will see upon visiting your site. People unfortunately do judge a book by it’s cover, so it is important that you spend time making sure that it is appealing to any visitors. Too many blogs seem to neglect their home page and just use the default layout of the theme that they are using.

Your home page needs to broadcast a lot of information about what your site is about, in a very short space of time. The average time someone will spend browsing a web page is roughly 3.5 seconds! That doesn’t give you a lot of time to spell out what your site is about. Remember that not everyone that visits your blog, will know what it is about. They may just happen to stumble upon it via a link or tweet, so you need to show off your site instantly.

There are many ways to do this, so don’t worry. The most important thing is not to overload your homepage with needless information. Not only will people not be able to take everything in at once, but it causes your site to look messy. Try to keep everything tidy and uncluttered to make it appear more attractive. A navigation menu is always welcome, as a good one allows visitors to navigate around your site with ease to find what they are looking for.

The home page is a great place to display your most recent posts. Not only does this make it easy to see what has been happening recently on your site, but it shows that your site is active. Not only do people like to see that your site is active, but search engines also like this and will rank you higher. I find that as well as displaying my latest posts, I grab peoples attention by displaying my featured postsvia my large picture slider. This scrolls between my 3 featured posts that I want to display, one from each of my categories.

2.Category Pages

It is a good idea to categorise your posts under a handful of subjects. This way, people can find related posts with ease. Too many categories and you will fragment your site up too much, making it harder to find related content. If you find that you do have too many categories, you may find that your site’s niche is too broad.

Making a page for each of your categories is a good idea to organise your site. These can be similar to your home page by displaying the most recent posts, but from that particular category.

I split my posts up into three categories and created a page for each; writing content, making moneyand getting traffic. This way, people that are only interested in the making money posts can easily find them, without having to search through all of my posts.

3.RSS Feed

Every blog should have an RSS feed. They are fairly straight forward to set up and they can help to inform people of your updates. Sites like FeedBurner and FeedBlitz automate the whole process so you don’t have to worry about it.

Make sure that you clearly put a link to your RSS feed on your site so that people can view it and subscribe. You can see our RSS feed here.

4.About Us Page

This type of page is quite often one of the most viewed pages on blogs. This is because people are curious to know who you are and why they should read your blog. Think of this page as an advert for your site. Sell yourself, your qualities, past experiences, information about you, your story and how you got started. The better this page is, the more likely people are to trust what you are writing about.

5.Affiliate & Support Page

Again, if you are selling your own product, you may have set up your own affiliate program to help to sell it. This is a great way to help promote your product as it gives incentive for people to advertise your product on their own website.

Having a dedicated page that describes all of the information that someone would need to become an affiliate advertiser of your product would be useful.

5 Reasons Why Your Business Can’t Live Without Google

Many people have varying opinions on Google. There are many online businesses and websites that rely heavily on Google.in fact I get to speak to many website owners who are in this situation.  I have had a few people get in touch with me who are angry that “Google has killed my business” and vow to turn their back on it forever.There is no real point in trying to fight against Google as you will inevitably lose.

1. Google Search Traffic

Whilst Bing, Yahoo and other search engines are great, nothing comes close to the huge behemoth that is Google.  Approximately 65-70% of all global internet searchers are done via the Google search engine.

What does this mean?  Well simply that if your online business intends to drive traffic, it needs to make the most of Google.  That is where the vast majority of people are coming from, so why fight against it.

Admittedly, even if you do everything that Google says, things can go wrong when they make updates to their search settings.  This can cause huge variations in traffic (i.e. the Penguin update cause many sites to lose lots of traffic), but unfortunately you just have to grin and bear it.  If future updates do have a knock on effect on your site, try not to be angry (as that will get you nowhere), instead just work towards fixing the issues.  Believe me, this has happened to one of my sites and the only thing that helped was to work WITH Google.

2. Android

Android devices account for approximately 75% of the global smartphone/tablet market.  Since mobile internet usage is dramatically increasing, it is vitally important that websites are “mobile friendly” for people to view whilst on the go.

The Google Play store is also one of the largest mobile app stores online, meaning that if your business intends to make its mark within the app market, it needs to do so for Android devices.  The Apple store for iPhone/iPad users and Windows app store are equally as important, but since Android holds such a hold on the market you can’t afford to neglect them.

3. Google Webmaster Tools

If Google Analytics is focused on the performance of your website, then Google Webmaster Tools is focused on the health of it.

Essentially it allows you to keep track of things like;

• Crawl errors,
• Crawl Stats,
• Malware,
• Sitemap stats,
• HTML Improvements,
• Site speed,
• …and much more.

   4. YouTube

 We have already established that Google is the biggest search engine online, but what would you  guess is the second biggest?  Bing?  Yahoo?  Baidu?  Nope, it’s none of those.  It is actually YouTube!

OK, so technically YouTube is not a search engine, but in terms of the number of daily searches made, YouTube outdoes all of the other search engines.  This is one of the main reasons why Google paid $1.65 billion for it back in 2006, which is a bargain for what it is probably worth now.

What does this mean for your online business?  Well, there is a HUGE source of traffic to utilize by introducing video to your marketing strategy.  Not only can people find you via the normal search engine, but they can find you via videos on YouTube that you have uploaded that point back to your main site.  What is even better is that you can embed your videos onto your main site as well, so people can watch them there.

There are many types of videos that you can create for your site, the point is that it helps to market your business.  You can even earn money from your videos via YouTube’s partner program.  In fact some individuals have been able to ditch their jobs and work full time online making YouTube videos, so it is well worth doing.

   5. Google+

Facebook and Twitter tend to grab all the headlines, but Google+ is arguably the most important and influential search engine around at the moment.  You could say that it is still in its infancy, but it is, without doubt, growing very quickly.

What makes it so influential is the fact that it is linked with Google’s other products, particularly its search engine.  You can now find listings that your Google+ friends have shared in the past or see your friends/colleagues posts in the SERPs when you wouldn’t normally.

Google authorship is also closely linked to Google+, allowing a small picture to appear next to your content in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).  This has been proved to increase the clickthrough rate to websites that have this enabled, making it even more important that you set yours up.

You can also setup individual Google+ pages for your business.  Not only is this another way for people to find you online, but it also provides additional information next to your main site listing on Google

So Can Your Business Live Without Google?

Google is being incredibly smart by building and linking all of their tools and services together to create a gigantic network.   Arguably though, it is because of this huge network that so many people are concerned about Google’s hold on the internet.

Whatever your personal views are about Google as a company, it is this network that is the reason why you should be working WITH Google and not against them, as you wouldn’t get very far without it.   It allows you to reach the most people online, with the greatest ease, with the best integrated tools at your disposal.  At the end of the day, it makes good business sense.

What are your views on Google as a whole?  Which Google tools/services could you not live without?  We want to hear your views, so please get in touch below via the comment system.

5 Foods to eat daily

Choosing nutritious foods helps your health in two ways. First, a diet packed with fiber-rich fruits and vegetables, lean proteins and healthy fats helps you feel fuller on fewer calories, which is key in keeping your weight in check.

1.Green Beans

Filling up on green beans, and other high-fiber foods, can help you prevent weight gain or even promote weight loss Research shows that eating foods that are full of water, such as watermelon, helps keep you satisfied on fewer calories.

Interestingly enough, drinking water alongside foods doesn’t have the safe effect.) At 92 percent water, watermelon is a good source of vitamin C. When it’s the red variety, it also has lycopene, an antioxidant that may help protect against heart disease and some types of cancer. Other foods that are made mostly of water include cucumbers (95 %), salad greens (90 %) and strawberries 

2.Tomatoes

Eating more vitamin-C rich foods, such as oranges, tomatoes, strawberries and broccoli, may be a secret to smoother skin.Leave the tomatoes on your face for a minimum of ten minutes, then wash. Your face will feel clean and shiny. Some redness may occur, but should fade with time.Tomatoes help prevent several types of cancer.

A number of studies have been conducted that indicate that the high levels of lycopene in tomatoes works to reduce your chances of developing prostate, colorectal and stomach cancer.
Lycopene is a natural antioxidant that works effectively to slow the growth of cancerous cells. Cooked tomatoes produce even more lycopene, so go ahead and cook up a batch of your mom’s famous tomato soup.

3.Garlic

Garlic has antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral properties. Most of its disease-fighting potential comes from its sulfur compounds, which act as antioxidants, providing many of its cardiovascular benefits. Just six or more cloves of garlic a week can slash your risk of colorectal, stomach and prostate cancer in half compared to eating one clove a week or less.

4.Oats

Oats’ cholesterol- and blood pressure-lowering powers come from beta-glucan, a type of soluble fibre. One cup (250 mL) a day of cooked oat bran, 1 ½ cups (375 mL) of cooked oatmeal or thee packets of instant oatmeal provide enough beta-glucan to lower blood cholesterol by about five percent and heart attack risk by about 10 percent. 

How much? Aim for 10 grams of soluble fibre each day. Cooked oats contain 2 to 3 grams per serving. 

Tip: Buy the type of oatmeal you’ll eat. It doesn’t matter if it’s steel-cut or instant.

5.Lemon

If you're trying to lose weight, replace beverages such as pop, alcohol and sweetened and unsweetened fruit drinks (which are full of calories) with plain water and a slice of lemon. Not only does lemon have a lot of flavour, it also contains vitamin C.

5 Foods You Should Never Eat Again

When you are trying to improve your health and lose weight, there are certain foods that you should avoid.
These foods are deeply problematic, because most people do not know to avoid them and therefore end up consuming them much more often than they should. Here are 5 foods that you should never eat again:

1. White Bread

White bread is a staple in most pantries, but the truth is that it doesn’t have any nutritional value. White bread contains a lot of sugar and it doesn’t have the ability to keep you satisfied, so within a few hours you are likely to find yourself feeling hungry and reaching for snacks.As it turns out, even breads that claim to be wheat could contain more sugar than grain and should often be avoided.

Ideally, you should replace your white bread with whole grain or whole wheat bread whenever possible, as whole wheat bread is positively good for your health.

Fried Foods

It is common knowledge that fried foods are not healthy and should be avoidedwhenever it is feasible.

In addition to causing you to pile on the pounds, these foods are of little nutritional value and can cause some serious health problems.

They are associated with higher cholesteroland higher blood pressure, both of which decrease your cardiovascular health and make you more likely to suffer from heart disease or strokes.

Fried foods can also upset the digestive system, leading to uncomfortable acid reflux, and potentially exacerbating the cramps or gas pains associated with irritable bowel syndrome.

Unfortunately, many people exclusively associate fried foods with the French fries, chicken nuggets, onion rings and burgers that you can buy at fast food restaurants.

These people remain unaware that they may also be consuming unhealthy fried foods at home.

If you want to improve your health, you should never fry your meals in a pan on the stove or in a deep fat fryer. Instead, consider baking or broiling.

5 Do’s and Don’ts Of Running An Online eCommerce Website

Do you have your eyes set on starting an eCommerce site? I have to say that if you know how to manage one, it can be an awesome way to make money for you online!  After all, an online eCommerce website is a global business, if managed in the right way.

The thing is, there are a lot of people who have already built their own online eCommerce website, but they’re nowhere near the kind of success that they hoped to achieve.  What’s puzzling them is that they have a fairly large amount of visitors to their site, but their sales just aren’t living up to their expectations. They’re getting little to no sales despite having a fairly large amount of visitors.

If you’re experiencing this or if you are in-fact about to start your own online eCommerce website, then you’re definitely in the right place. We’ll talk about what you can do to convert your traffic and 3 things that you’re probably already doing that’s turning-off your visitors from buying.

Let me start with my two cents on how you’ll convert your traffic. For you to convert your traffic to sales, here’s what you need to do…

Use Quality Product Images

Whatever it is that you are selling, you need to make sure that you are showing it off to the best of your ability.  People don’t get the chance to touch, feel, smell, etc. as they would were they to buy from a shop down the street.  That is one of the few downsides to buying online, which means you need toshow them quality photos of your products.

Written descriptions can only reassure buyers so far, but images (or even video) will give them confidence to buy from you.  I know I would feel uneasy buying something from a site that didn’t have and decent images of their product.

Speed Up Your Online eCommerce Website

We are all impatient people nowadays.  We don’t have time to waste waiting for your site to slowly load up each page, especially when we can simply navigate to a faster site that sells the same stuff.

That may sound harsh, but it’s a reality that many sites are facing nowadays.  Slow sites (even fractionally slow loading sites) are losing visitors and traffic, which ultimately results in revenue.  Amazon reported that they increased revenue by 1% for every 100 milliseconds of improved site speed, which is a lot of money!

Google and other search engines have also said that site speed is taken into consideration when organizing SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), so it pays to have a faster site.

Check out our guide to speeding up your website!

List Building!

I should think everyone has heard the line, “The money’s in the list!” right?  Well it really is!

If you’re able to build an email list, you can nurture relationships and send continuous offers to your prospects. Doesn’t that sound likea a sure fire way of getting sales?

Nurturing relationships and sending constant offers?  The sooner you understand and accept this fact, the faster you’ll start converting those visitors into buyers!  Just make sure that your follow-up emails are of good quality and not spammy in nature. You can also send giveaways to your email list so they’ll like you even more. Besides, everyone loves freebies right?

The more you establish how genuine you are in your list and the stronger the relationship you can nurture with them, the easier it is for them to buy from you. Even high ticket products won’t be an issue. Just make sure that you build enough rapport and credibility and you’ll surely see results.

There are tons of other methods that you can use to help you with your conversion. But for now, I’ll leave it at that.

So, What You Are Doing Wrong On Your eCommerce Site

Let’s now talk about the three sure-fire ways on how to turn OFF your visitors from buying from your online eCommerce website:

 1. Spam Them With Pop-ups

Don’t get me wrong, I think pop-ups are great (when used correctly) but if you just use them to spam your visitors, you’ll be in big trouble. You probably receive emails from your visitors that are complaining about it or perhaps they’ll simply leave your site out of frustration.  Whichever the case is, it points to them not buying anything from you AT ALL!

That said, you have to be very careful when using pop-ups. You need to make sure that they appear in the right place and at the right time. If you just use it without giving the timing and placement careful consideration, your pop-up’s efficiency can backfire on you. 

2. Misrepresent Your Product’s Features 

This unethical and dishonest way of doing business won’t just cost you a sale, it’ll cost you your reputation and any chance of your eCommerce site to succeed!

Misrepresenting your product will only lead to your visitors getting frustrated from buying from you in the first place. You can bet your family jewels that most, if not all of them, will ask for refunds.

Every time you misrepresent your product’s features, you’re not just dirtying your name, you’re tarnishing the name of the internet marketers as a whole! When that happens, selling online gets harder and harder

3. Add Too Many Banner Ads On The Site 

I get what you’re trying to do. You just want to show them as much offer as you can since you’re confident that your product will solve your prospect’s problem right?  That’s all well and good, but you have to understand that there is always a time for everything.

If you add your banner ads in places where your customers expect to see quality content, you’ll be in big trouble.  As a general rule, you have to make sure that your banners aren’t messing with your customers line of sight when they are reading your contents.  Instead of profusely adding banners all over your site, how about you create a clear call to action on all of your blog posts? That way, after they read your posts, they can see what you have to offer and proceed into buying it if they like it.

The things I shared above are all critical points that you should remember if you’re starting an eCommerce site or if you’re already running one right now.

Do you have anything to share about how you managed your own online eCommerce website to make it more successful?  What things put you off buying from a site?  Please let us know and share your ideas in the comments section below. I hope to hear from you soon!

5 ways To Sell An eBook On Amazon

Writing an eBook can be an exciting, but also daunting experience.  For many bloggers, it is not the writing of the book that causes confusion, but selling the eBook online once it’s finished.  Of course, you can sell your eBook on your own website and you also have the option to make it an affiliate product for other bloggers, but what about other avenues.  How can you sell your eBook on amazon

Get Your eBook On Amazon?

Amazon is one of the best places to buy and sell books online as it has hundreds of millions of users from around the world.  Getting your eBook on Amazon opens the door to a lot more people than you could ever hope to get with a normal website, which is why it is SO important that you get yours listed on there.

Amazon only accepts Kindle formats of eBooks, which can put many bloggers off from using the service as they feel that this process must be difficult.  This however isn’t the case and shouldn’t be a stumbling point for you because Amazon will automatically convert your eBook when you upload it.  Pretty exciting right?!

Selling your eBook on Amazon is not as difficult as it first sounds.  Whilst trying to work through the myriad of Amazon rules and regulations it can appear to be a minefield.  You will however be pleased to hear that there are actually only a few simple steps that you need to take to get your eBook listed for sale.

Let’s get started…

Create an Amazon KDP Account

The first thing you need to do is open up a KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) account with Amazon.  You can sign up for this for free at the following link – https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin (If you already have an account with Amazon, you can use the same login details.)

Don’t worry too much if your eBook is not in Kindle format, you still need to sign up.  Your eBook will be converted to Kindle at a later point, so try not to worry.

Once you are all signed up, you will be taken to your “Bookshelf”.  This will list all the books that you have available for sale on Amazon.  This will obviously be empty right now…. but not for long!

Add Your eBook To The Bookshelf

In only a few more steps your e-book will be available for sale with Amazon – it truly is as easy as that!

In the top left hand corner of your KDP account, you will see a tab “Add New Title”.  Click on this tab and it will take you through to the page where you can start entering all the details of your book.

Most of the fields on this page are self explanatory, but if you do become confused there are prompts to give you some direction.  You want to make sure that you fill in each of the sections and provide as MUCH detail as possible about your book.

In the very first section titled ‘Enter Your Book Details’, you will see an option to add an ISBN (International Standard Book Number).  Note that I said “optional”.  When I was looking to add my eBook onto Amazon, everywhere I read said you needed an ISBN number and I didn’t think I would be able to get my e-book listed.

So, I will be very clear here….you DO NOT NEED an ISBN number to sell you e-book on Amazon!  If you do not have this number, simply leave it blank.

If you are self publishing your book, you need to enter your own name into this field.

Choose a category that is relevant for your e-book and use keywords to help customers find your book.  The more targeted keywords you can use, obviously the better this will be.

You will then need to upload a cover image of your eBook.  This image will be shown on Amazon’s sale page, so it is important to spend some time on this getting it right.  If you don’t feel you have the skills to make your own cover, you could hire someone to do it for you.  There are plenty of people onFiverr who can design covers for only $5.  If you do use Fiverr, make sure you check out the sellers credentials first and check previous work they have undertaken.

It is important to note that the image you upload needs to be saved in a JPEG or TIFF format and at least 1000 pixels on the longest side (height/width ratio of 1:6)

Uploading Your eBook

This is the exciting part and you will be surprised at how quick this is to do.

To have your eBook on Amazon it needs to be in Kindle format.  You could organise for this to be converted before uploading, or you could upload the PDF or Word file and have Amazon convert it for you.  This was certainly my preference!

Amazon will take the file that you upload and covert it to a Kindle friendly format.  There is an option to view your converted file and I highly recommend you do this, especially if you have used pictures or graphics in your eBook.  Conversion can sometimes distort the formatting so it is incredibly important you check the final upload BEFORE you continue any further.  This is your book and you need to be happy with the final look.

Confirm Your Pricing & Royalty Options

Amazon requests that you choose between two royalty options which are 35% and 70%.  This is the percentage of the book sale that is given to you, and Amazon will keep the rest.

For a 70% royalty option, the e-book must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99.  If you e-book is priced above or below this amount, you will need to select the 35% option.  It is worthwhile playing around with some figures here, because you may be better off selling your book for $9.99 than $14.99 for instance, as the money in your pocket would be higher.

Wait For Your eBook To Be Published

Once you have completed all the details for your eBook and you have saved it, Amazon will review it before they accept it for sale on their site.  This can take between 24-48 hours, so just be patient!  Amazon will email you once the e-book has been approved and will send you the direct link where it is for sale.

Here is what mine looks like.

All you need to do now is start sharing your new Amazon link and wait for the sales!!!

Have you listed your eBook on Amazon yet?  How did you find the whole process?  Please let us know by leaving a comment below

5 Ways to Setup Twitter Cards For Your Website

Want more engagement from your Tweets that you use to promote your website content?  If so, why not setup Twitter Cards for your site.  This shows more information on your individual Tweets than regular ones.  In the following post we will show you how to setup Twitter Cards for your site so you can start using them.

What Are Twitter Cards?

Twitter cards are a relatively new feature that allows you to add media to your tweets that link to your website content.  You may have already seen a few sites make use of this, which is actually quite easy to setup.

You should always promote your content on social media as it’s a great way to engage with more people.  Twitter cards simply enhance the way they look to your followers.  So, instead of your Tweet looking like this when you share one of your links….

…it will look like this instead.

Different Types Of Twitter Cards

Twitter actually offers a whole host of different types of Twitter Cards for you to use depending on the type of content that you want to promote.  You can use as many different ones as you want, though that requires extra time to setup.

Here are the 8 different types of Twitter cards that you can use;

1. Summary Card

This is the default card type that you will probably see being used the most.  This is great for lots of different types of content, including; blog posts, news stories, product reviews, etc.

2. Summary Card With Large Image

This is just the same as the default ‘Summary Card’, only that you get a much larger image displayed under your Tweets.

3. Photo Card

As you would imagine, this just shows the image that you are tweeting to everyone.  Very useful for an image based site.

4. Galley Card

Need to display more than one image in your tweets? Well the Gallery Card is probably the best fit for you.

5. App Card

This card is quite interesting.  With this, you can promote your mobile app on Twitter, which includes the name, description and icon.  You can also set it up to include things like rating and price.

6. App Installs and Deep Linking

This type allows you to include a link on your Tweet to open up in a new app.  This is aimed specifically for people on their phones/tablets as if they have that app installed, it will direct them to it immediately.

7. Player Card

This allows you to include streamed media, such as video, audio or slideshows into your Tweets.  Currently, this type of card requires special approval though.

8. Product Card

Include your product in your tweets, which shows an image, description, price and more depending on how you set it up.

Setting Up Twitter Cards For Your Site

Now that you know of the different types of Twitter cards that you can choose from, how do you set them up for your site?  Well, there are two ways to go about this.

Firstly, if you use the excellent WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, you can use that.  They have the Twitter Card feature all setup, all you have to do is enable it and enter in your Twitter username.  You can find it (if you have it installed) in the ‘WordPress Dashboard > SEO > Social > Twitter’ section.  This is the method I used to setup the ‘Summary Card’ for this site.

Alternatively, head over to Twitter’s Twitter Card page and pick the card that you want to use.  You will be able to setup all the individual aspects that you want to display (so this method is better for the more advanced card types).  You will get an embed code that you will need to add to your site, preferably within the <head> section of your site.

Verify Your Site With Twitter

Whichever method you used, you will now have the Twitter meta tags setup on your pages (if you aren’t sure, check your page source).  Now all you need to do is validate your site with Twitter.

I had setup my tags a while ago, but forgot to validate my site straight away, so mine didn’t work until I did this.

In order to validate, go to the validation page and enter in one of your URLs that includes the meta tags that you have just added.  That’s it!  Twitter will check your site for the code and then start displaying your cards.  This can take a up to two weeks to confirm, though mine came through the next day.

Have you setup Twitter cards for your site yet?  Are you having any problems getting them to show up properly?  Please get in touch below and we will try to help you.