What do you think of the Bloodhound Method? Do you see any ways you can utilize it in your niche? Let me know.

One of the most overlooked self-employed careers is the courier driver. You can become your own boss and work on your own terms, all while making a decent wage. Use these tips to get your courier career of to the right start.

Get moving
The first thing you’re going to need is some kind of transportation for your job. There are bike couriers and car couriers, and some people even use airplanes to deliver parcels from place to place. If you’re like most, you should choose a car or van for your delivery jobs because it’s faster than a bike (more deliveries equals more money) and it has relatively low upkeep cost. You can start out with a mid- to full-size car and move up to a bigger van later as business increases.

Get insured
It can be nerve wracking when you’re responsible for other people’s things. What if something gets broken, or you get in an accident during a delivery run? Insurance is the answer to your concern, and it will help make your business more reputable as well. Call your current insurance provider to see if they can help you with their courier rates or a referral. Insurance will give you and your customers the peace of mind that everything is covered in case of an accident.

Get digital
It can take years to build up a good customer base by traditional word-of-mouth marketing. Thankfully, the Internet has changed all of that and a good website will do all that work in a fraction of the time. You can try your hand at building your own website or use a professional company or individual to set it up. Remember, this is the first thing people will see about you and your new business, so it needs to be top-notch.

Get advertising
Your website isn’t going to attract traffic on it’s own, so to start out you’re going to need some advertising. During this time you can supplement your income with companies that list delivery jobs for independent drivers. You don’t have to spend all of your money on advertising, but a big part of your starting expenses will come from this area. When you’ve been around for a while, you will start to get repeat customers and word-of-mouth recommendations so you can lower your ad budget. Whatever you do, don’t skimp on ads in the beginning or you’ll be out of money and work before you know it.

That’s it! Obviously there’s more to being a successful courier than getting off to a good start. You need to become the trusted provider for your customers’ delivery needs, and that will take some time. If you take these first steps, however, you’ll be on the way to being your own boss in no time.

Logan is a writer who spends his time planning for financial freedom when he isn’t pounding the keys on his keyboard.

Have you ever wondered why that is? I have not only analyzed it and thought about it but I’ve experienced it. So after wasting money on special SEO software, memberships to forums, e-books, WSOs, courses, and all sorts of other money- and time-wasters…I offer my free guide. And I promise you will make money from it. Before beginning, put some beer in the fridge.

Step 1: Research a Niche
You need to figure out a niche of product. It can be almost anything that can be bought and sold – anything from a service to a tangible product to a non-tangible product. In fact I don’t care and it doesn’t matter what it is as long as it is something people buy online. It doesn’t matter if they buy it on Clickbank, via merchant’s private affiliate programs, or via Amazon affiliate links. Just find a niche that can be sold (via affiliate links, of course).

How to pick? I don’t want to give you any complicated formulas or even any simple formulas for how to choose a niche. Since this is my guide and I like to keep things simple, here’s the only requirement: you are interested in it. If you like guitars, then maybe the niche is guitars or guitar effects pedals. If you are a big time anime geek, then something anime like maybe those statues of anime women or whatever. If you like a certain kind of eyeglasses, then choose that style of glasses. You just need to like this niche enough to stick with this project.

Your niche research consists of simply picking something you’re interested in that you can sell online.

Step 2: Buy a Domain
Get yourself a reasonable domain. You don’t need to spend lots of money on a domain. Just do a bulk domain search for your main keyword with words appended to it such as “buy”, “online”, “store”, etc. Get a .com and don’t bother with anything else. The shorter the better, and no dashes.

Step 3: Set Up a WordPress Site
I make the assumption you have hosting already. If not, get cPanel hosting with Fantastico. Set your brand-spanking-new domain up with WordPress. A non-techie could probably do it with ease, so you can probably have it set up in five minutes just like WordPress promises. Put in the title of your site, put a nice template on there, set up an XML sitemap, set up pretty permalinks (category/title), and set up a contact form. (I’ll leave it up to you to pick the plugins for those tasks). Now, grab one of those beers.

Step 4: Research Ten Titles
As you crack open that beer, you should have a notepad next to you and your computer screen in front of you. I want you to brainstorm topics that relate to your niche. Some words to get your ideas flowing are “best”, “worst”, “tips”, “how to use”, “best methods”, “best uses”, “highest rated”, “reviews”, “how to pick”, “best of 2011″ (or previous year), “bargains”, “coupons”, “deals”. Depending on your niche these suggested words might work, but you might need to come up with some others as well.

This might take an hour. It might take three hours. But if you sit down and brainstorm, do a bit of searching, and write down all the good ideas, you will end up with a list of decent article titles – these are topics for the next step. Out of that list, I want you to choose the ten “best”.

Step 5: Write
If you’ve gotten this far, congratulations! You are doing better than maybe 75% of all “affiliate marketers” because most people simply hang out on forums, buy software, and then do nothing. You, however, are about to actually give yourself a shot at making some affiliate sales. That can’t happen until you write an article for each of your topics from the previous step, where you started drinking.

If you’re still drinking, it will help with the tedium – because writing a lot of content can be very boring. The most common complaint is “I can’t think of any more ways to say the same thing”. I know, because I’ve had to do it and I’ve also directed inexperienced content writers in how to write for me. But be of good cheer; it is possible to write about the same thing over and over.

For one thing, the titles you picked are hopefully different enough to where you aren’t duplicating the exact same thought over and over. Secondly, as your write your articles you can formulate some content creation steps. Here are some steps I used in a particular niche for which I had to write a series of 300+ word articles dealing with apparel and accessories:

1. If there’s a brand or company in the subcategory, type out some company info including product specialties or applications, if possible. You can use this to flesh out the text.
2. Make a generic list of product types that are in this category.
3. Divide those product types into related groups of products.
4. Form an outline by introducing the company or subcategory, then writing sentences around the groups of product types, then closing with a summary.
5. Fill in details by citing possible uses of the products.

For your niche, you will have different steps, but the point is that you CAN formulate some steps to help you create the articles. You have to first write one really good article, break down what you did, and then formulate it. After that, it’s almost like filling in the blanks.

When you’ve written your ten articles, you can go to step six.

Step 6: Publish
This is where you can reward yourself by actually doing something you can see. This is where results can occur. This is when sales can start rolling in!

Publish each of your lovingly crafted articles on your WordPress site. Of course make sure to do your tagging, any SEO stuff you want to do, and last but not least – put those affiliate links in the articles. I would suggest placing a good image in each article as well. Place an alt attribute on each pic while you’re at it.

It Is Finished!
Now, sit back and pronounce it “good”. You have something that can make money. You have a foundation, at least, from which to build upon. You have something you didn’t have before, and its something that the vast majority of “internet marketers” do not possess.

Best of all, if you’ve gotten this far I guarantee that you’ve gained knowledge, experience, and maybe some good habits that will get you going further. Why is this important? Because now you can move on to the next site. You can do it again. By the end of 2012 you can have a handful of solid websites that you can improve, build upon, promote, and (of course) make some money from.

And that is the full extent of the guide. I really have nothing else to say. That’s partly because I hate writing long articles, but also because I am confident that if you simply build one site as I’ve described, you will have learned (either intuitively or as a side-effect of your efforts) the rest of what you need to learn. It just comes with the territory, and in fact can’t be imputed by “book knowledge”.

If you build a site as I described, you have what you need to make money online in 2012. And I wish you the best of success.

Real estate is a fun and lucrative business to be in; IF you can master it. There are two ways you can go about building up your career in this field: through focus and hard work, or through floundering. You know how a duck looks so smooth as it glides across the water? Well, under the surface, there are little legs paddling frantically to get the duck where it wants to go! This is kind of how your real estate career looks. You move about your day, looking good and sounding good and saying all the right things (hopefully). And behind the scenes you are pumping yourself up, preparing papers, learning scripts to use with clients, and pumping yourself up some more.

You may buy and sell Denver real estate; you may incorporate property management into your services; you may work on the Atlantic Coast….and your marketing efforts are what are what will make or break you in any scenario or city. Market yourself correctly from the beginning of your real estate career and you’ll be thankful that you put the time into learning how to do things right.

Be Remarkable

This may sound like a tall order; but it’s really not. First, let’s talk about WHY you need to be remarkable. This is easy; you need to be better than the next guy. What do you offer that other people don’t? What is going to make people talk about YOU and your services over the agent at the next desk? Start by asking yourself “If I were my own client, what would be remarkable to me?” Turn off your inner critic and consider services or perks you can offer clients that will make them remember you. Go further than the calendar that sticks to the refrigerator!

• Offer to have the carpets cleaned when your buyers close escrow on their home
• Offer to have one room painted
• Offer tours to clients who are relocating
• Offer professional photos, videos or home staging for sellers

When deciding on which services you could offer, make your list as large as possible. This will give you something to draw from no matter what your budget at the time.

Take Advantage of Free Marketing

Most real estate agents are easily roped in to creating newsletters and sending mailers, magnets and calendars to their clients. These are all fine and dandy; but there is free marketing out there and you will do well to utilize all that is at your disposal! I’m talking about free press here. In your local area, you want to be known as an expert. If you buy or sell Fort Collins real estate, you want residents of Fort Collins to know you! Step into the limelight! Ways to good PR are to write or have a press release written about the services you are offering to clients. Because you can always switch up the services and perks you offer, you can regularly release this to the public. Consider writing an article, or a regular column for a local paper…research past your large news publication, even smaller publications work for marketing purposes.

When establishing yourself as a professional in your area, remember to be yourself. Have fun. Plan ahead, and learn how to market yourself right.

Laura W. Jansen is an avid writer who covers many topics related to Lifestyle: party decorations, interior design or outdoor living. Gardening, home decorating and outdoor recreation are covered extensively for http://www.automatedhomefinder.com/.

If you have a blog that gets any number of readers, you could be bringing in some extra money by monetizing your blog’s traffic. The general formula for making money with a blog is to provide readers with advertisements and offers that they will be interested in based on the subject matter of your blog. This is the easiest to pull off when your blog has a central focus on one niche or industry since you can be sure all of your readers will have one common interest. What follows is a number of ways you can use this basic formula to make money from blogging.

Method #1: Contextual Advertisements

It seems like almost anywhere you go on the web, you’ll see advertisements from Google AdSense, Clicksor, adBrite, and other contextual advertisers. These ads are so popular because they work really well. Because these ad blocks will show advertisements based on keywords in the content of your blog, you can be sure that you’re always getting relevant ads that your visitors will be interested in. This means more money in your pocket since your readers will click on ads more often.

Method #2: Paid Sponsors

If you have a lot of readers, it’s a pretty straight-forward process to get sponsored by companies that offer products and services for the industry or niche your blog covers. By writing to these companies asking for sponsorship, you’ll be taking the initiative in monetizing your blog. The worst thing that can happen is that they say no. That is a break even scenario, so don’t be scared to ask. If you do get a sponsor, then you should be very clear about the terms of the sponsorship. Many sponsors will ask that you put their logo on any media that is attached to your blog, which is part of the general idea of overall sponsorship and will bring you more money.

Method #3: Direct Advertising

Instead of presenting sponsorship opportunities to companies that would be interested in communicating with your reader base, you can offer them advertising space instead. This comes across as a win-win situation for the companies you’ll be contacting since they will get exposure and you will be compensated monetarily. If you don’t want to go out on your own to negotiate with big companies about advertising deals, there are always advertising brokers available on the Internet that can get you set up with a minimal amount of fuss.

Method #4: Promoting Affiliate Programs

No matter what niche or industry your blog covers, there are sure to be quite a few affiliate programs available for products and services that your readers will love. When you’re promoting affiliate products and services on your blog, you can often get special discount codes for up to 10 or 20 percent off. These discount codes will double as your affiliate tracking code, so you don’t have to worry about another affiliate getting credit for the sale using your discount code. If you split test and work the numbers, you can quickly figure out which affiliate programs perform the best with your blog’s reader base, and this process will help you to maximize your earnings.

Method #5: Build a Mailing List

Building a mailing list really serves two functions. The first function that a mailing list serves is that it gives you multiple chances to sell to the same people. This will dramatically increase your profits if you are promoting affiliate programs or some other product or service. The second function that a mailing list serves is that it increases the number of repeat visitors to your blog. Unless someone adds your blog to their RSS aggregator or bookmarks it, they can easily forget about your blog and never see it again. However, if you prompt them to sign up for email updates from your blog, you’ll have them coming back over and over again. More repeat visitors means more advertising money and more money from sponsors, so building a mailing list can improve your profits no matter what monetization method you use.

Method #6: Accept Donations

Many people are willing to donate some money to an entertaining blog that supplies quality information. Most electronic wallets like PayPal have an easy setup process for accepting donations that usually only takes a few mouse clicks. If you set this up on your blog, make sure that you put it where your readers will be able to see it after finishing an article so that you maximize the chance of getting a donation.