The Jewish Guide to Success on the Web: How to Achieve Your Goals & Live Your Values Online By Naomi Elbinger A Publication By P a g e | 2 Copyright © 2013 Naomi Elbinger, MyParnasa.com This book may be freely distributed so long as it is whole, intact and not altered in any way and the author is given full credit. The content of this ebook is compiled from the author’s own knowledge and experience, and it should not be taken as professional, legal or halachic guidance. Copyright © 2013 Naomi Elbinger MyParnasa.com P a g e | 3 CONTENTS How to Read this Book ................................................................................................................................................... 4 Why Read This Book? ..................................................................................................................................................... 5 Why Didn’t Anyone Read Your Last Blog Post? ................................................................................................. 6 My Latest Failed Business Venture ........................................................................................................................ 8 How Much Money Do I Make From Blogging? ................................................................................................ 13 The Top 11 Orthodox Jewish Websites in the World.................................................................................... 16 My Top Four Lame Excuses for Violating The Copyrights of My Fellow Jews ...................................... 20 Can Jewish Websites Make Money? .................................................................................................................... 22 The Halachas of Facebook and Google: A Rabbi and a Web Marketer Discuss .................................... 30 Is Your Website Breaking Shabbos? ................................................................................................................... 34 Jews Don’t Collect Interest… Except When We Do ........................................................................................ 37 Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................................... 41 About the Author........................................................................................................................................................... 42 Copyright © 2013 Naomi Elbinger MyParnasa.com P a g e | 4 HOW TO READ THIS BOOK This book is a series of articles that can be read in any order you choose. Start with the one that most catches your attention. In order to maximize your enjoyment of this book, I recommend that your print it out and read it in comfort. Reading it on an e-reader or tablet can also be good, if you prefer that. Most people find reading on a desktop or laptop to be uncomfortable, stressful and far from enjoyable. So if you are sitting in front of a desk right now, I highly recommend you consider those other options. I want you to enjoy reading this book! Copyright © 2013 Naomi Elbinger MyParnasa.com P a g e | 5 WHY READ THIS BOOK? This book has been created for you, with three goals in mind: 1. To inform you: If you share an interest in business, marketing and/or Judaism, this book will open your horizons to new ideas and information can help you solve common problems and see new opportunities for success. 2. To entertain you: This book is written to make you think and make you laugh. I’m assuming that you like doing those things. 3. To engage you: It is my hope that the messages of this book regarding business, marketing, Torah, integrity and overcoming various challenges, will speak to your heart, as well as your mind. May we all be blessed to find success in our endeavors while remaining true to the values that we hold dearest. Naomi Elbinger Jerusalem April 2013 PS. If you are not already getting my free email updates, subscribe now Copyright © 2013 Naomi Elbinger MyParnasa.com P a g e | 6 WHY DIDN’T ANYONE READ YOUR LAST BLOG POST? Are you spending hours writing brilliant blog posts, only to be faced with a mere bump in your traffic? If you never want that to happen again, these tips are for you. Let’s define a beginner blogger as someone whose posts usually get less than 100 views in the first day. Obviously anyone with a big following (e.g. email subscribers or Facebook likers), finds it easy to get hundreds or thousands of views for every post they write, even if it’s just their shopping list. Not only that, but they will get dozens of comments and shares for their mediocre ramblings! But beginner bloggers can’t get away with that. If we want to get big traffic to my posts, we follow these 5 rules: 1. A Hot Topic – Since you are not (yet) a power-blogger you cannot just write whatever you feel like and hope that hundreds of strangers will care. You might have a lot of good points to make about baking or skin care or management consulting, but you run the risk of being drowned out by the heavyweights who already writing about these topics. Here are three tried-and-true ways to get people’s attention for your post: a. Relate it to a hot news item (e.g. Bin Laden’s Babka Recipe); b. Drop the name of a celebrity (Madonna’s Babka Recipe); c. Relate it to an upcoming event that everyone is thinking about (Lag Ba’Omer Babka Recipe????). As long as there is some connection between Bin Laden and babka in your article, you’re good to go. 2. An Intriguing Headline – The main factor that will determine whether anyone will read begin to your post is the headline. So don’t blow this sink-or-swim opportunity to get their attention. If you have a hot topic, writing a good headline is easier. I think a good headline should be intriguing, it should raise a question in a person’s mind that is interesting enough that they really want to find out the answer, i.e. read your post. Just think, if I had called this article: “Great ideas to get more views for your blog posts.” Would you want to read it? 3. An Eye-Catching Image – Everyone enjoys seeing a picture among text. It really adds quality to your blog. But the real need for an image is that if you want your post to be shared on Facebook, an eye-catching image will attract more people to click on it. Of course, if you are writing about a hot topic, eye-catching images are usually easy to find. 4. A Like Button – Speaking of Facebook, you should be using a plugin to put a “like” button at the end of every post (and a tweet button too). Whenever, anyone finishes an article, they have this split second of indecision where they are not sure what to do next. If your post was worth reading (and especially if it was related to a hot topic), they will Copyright © 2013 Naomi Elbinger MyParnasa.com P a g e | 7 often click that “Like” button – and that means more traffic for your blog post. You can also actively encourage people to click “like,” but only do this is you really think your post is the kind of thing people will share. 5. A 5-minute Social Media Campaign – You can’t expect anyone to read your post if no one knows that it exists. Assuming that you don’t have many Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn followers or a significant number of email subscribers of your own, there are still ways that you can let people know via social media. For example, you can post on a relevant popular Facebook page or LinkedIn group (this is where your headline and image will play a big role). You can also use any relevant online group or list as a place to promote your posts, just don’t be the nudnik who does it too often. If you are writing about a hot topic, you will find it pretty easy to attract visitors this way. It seems that all of these points boil down to one main factor: a hot topic. I’m not saying that you should only write about hot topics, but you should write them on a regular basis as a way to attract that initial traffic that you can convert into loyal subscribers and likers. I’ve used this formula a few times now and it always works for me. Here’s a simple example: I remember a few years ago when the world was a-buzz with the Royal Wedding in England, I decided to write a post about it for my Yiddish translation site. What does the Royal Wedding have to do with translating old Yiddish letters? Gornisht! But I was determined to make the most of this molten hot topic by writing a post about it for the blog. With a little creativity, I came up with a silly and attention-grabbing post called “Will and Kate Plan Jewish Dance for Royal Wedding.” The result: I got a very healthy spike of traffic for this little post (close to 400 views in a few days). And it was all thanks to the Royal Wedding hype and nothing to do with the brilliance of my post, though the post must have been somewhat entertaining because no less than 45 people decided to hit the “like” button at the end of the post. More importantly, this post got us 12 new likers for the website’s Facebook page and 1 great new customer. But what about SEO? you may ask. Since hot topics cool off pretty quick, the long-term SEO value of these kinds of posts is not great. Nevertheless while the topic is yet smoldering you can get a lot of search engine traffic. (Due to the rumor that Prince William would break a glass, my post got good search engine traffic, even though it is not optimized.) However, you should still also be writing posts that target keywords with long-term SEO value – after all, SEO is what will keep my sites working on autopilot even when I’m off listening to Avraham Fried perform on a kosher cruise to Alaska. But until I fulfill that lofty dream of mine, the hot-topic posts are what get my sites noticed today. Copyright © 2013 Naomi Elbinger MyParnasa.com P a g e | 8 MY LATEST FAILED BUSINESS VENTURE THIS IS OUR CHICKEN, SAMI.