When your blog is stuck, what do you do? For those keeping up with this blog, you have probably seen that it's been inactive for almost two weeks now - Although I have been busy with school exams and finals, I have to admit that it's already been one week that I'm in vacation and I haven't posted yet =/.
I haven't been posting and I haven't promoted my blog on forums or others but one thing that I did was surf sites in traffic exchanges.
For those that don't know what traffic exchanges are, it's a system put in place in which you get to surf sites for a set time(usually 30 seconds each) and in exchange you get credits which can be used to get others surf your site at a time of your choosing. When your blog or site is new I think that you might want to try to gain some exposure this way.
So I have been surfing sites in traffic exchanges quite a bit, did spend a few hours but it could pay off. The idea first came when I saw a blog post on someone's blog about it and decided to try it out. The post led me to a traffic exchange called BlogClicker, a traffic exchange specifically made for blogs. After about two hours I was getting exhausted and was soon trying to accelerate that process. Waiting for that 30 second clock while doing nothing else can seem long. I tried to open a new surf window but it said error and detected my plans...you cannot get more credits by surfing on several windows of the same traffic exchange.
I then realized that there were a bunch of other traffic exchanges out there, and was soon finding myself surfing through 4-5 different traffic exchanges in same time! You barely wait any time at all and can pile up credits and visitors much faster this way. The 3 main ones I joined were : BlogClicker ,BlogExplosion , and EasyHits4U. The first two are especially made for blogs while EasyHits4U is with all kind of sites. All three offer great features, fpr example you can switch your credits for the equivalent in banner impressions or just keep it in simple visits(1 credit = 1 visitor or 25 banner impressions). They also offer great referral programs tat you should definitely get into.
I haven't spent my credits yet, I've decided to keep them in the bank and try to create a small "traffic buzz". My earned credits are as follows: BlogClicker = 287 credits BlogExplosion = 206 credits EasyHits4U = 117 credits. Wow hey? Ya it did take some patience. Btw, let me warn you that running Adsense ads while receiving traffic from traffic exchange sites is strictly AGAINST the Google Adsense policies and I will put them down while using my credits.
I did work hard for my credits so I have to use them wisely. I decided to spend them all in one single day, it's a little "buzz" creation experiment that I'm having here. The goal would be to suddenly create some immediate attention for this blog and to snatch a good little bunch of subscribers and from there perhaps gain some backlinks and benefit from the word of mouth effect if possible. Also another benefit I think of releasing all those credits in one day is that for that day only my Adsense ads will be shut down, but the next day when all my credits have been used, I will put the Adsense back up to profit from some follow-up traffic...you see, if I only spent a little amount of credits every-day, I wouldn't be able to monetize the follow-up traffic with Adsense because of the policy Adsense has on traffic from traffic exchanges.
So anyway, I will keep you guys updated on how all this works out for me, I will report the results here in a few days..Stay tuned!
Want to start a new blog? Don't know what to write about? Well then read on or you might be leaving money on the table!
You want to write about something and make money out of it but you don't know what to write about? Then don't rush it! - take a minute to learn about how to make the most money out of your blog posts. Although writing about something that you love might be a good choice, there is more than that to consider when starting a new blog. As I've mentioned before, traffic = money. Yes but different kind of traffic also equals different kind of money (for beginners, one way to monetize your traffic is through Google Adsense - or you can check out the full list of ways to monetize your blog or website).
So I was saying; targeted traffic is worth considerably more than non-targeted traffic. If you have a news site and are promoting or displaying ads about let's say an ab exerciser - you will get less sales or clicks than if your site was about fitness. In other words, for a general and non targeted website to make money, you will need a lot of visitors; much more than a "niche" or specific subject website. You can of course still make a lot of money from a general website, its just that you need boatloads of visitors to convert that traffic into sales, leads or clicks. That is why I personally prefer a "niche" website - and most people also do. Now if you want to start a subject specific website, there are even further considerations to take...
If let's say, you are really passionate about Teletubbies, and you're willing to write a blog about that, then chances are that you won't be making much money doing it UNLESS if your blog is exceptionally good and ranks on the first page of Google for that specific keyword term (Teletubbies). If that's the case, then you might be well off, but the opportunities for growth in that niche are limited to a certain extent. Take a look at this.
In that same picture you can see that the "Laptop" keyword goes for considerably more, and "Auto Insurance" even more. This is because of the nature of the product and the economic principles that lie behind it (profit margins, offer and demand, etc).
Another thing to look out for when choosing the topic that you're going to write about is the competition. You can already wonder where most of the competition is just by looking at the chart...No doubt it's on auto insurance! People often go where the fish bite - and rightly so. However, don't let the numbers fool you because it is very difficult to generate income with those types of content. Choosing a topic in which the competition is low can be a good idea; even a low paying keyword can make you a lot of money if your blog has a good position in the search engine results.
Recap: you can use this tool to check out the average monthly searches for a specific term, and also use the super Google cpc estimator tool to check out the amount of monthly searches (demand) of a keyword you specify. I hope that you find a good balance between monthly searches(demand), competition, and cpc(cost per click) of the keyword topic that your blog will be about. Either decision(s) you take, good luck on making money out of it! and remember that if you are using adsense, do NOT communicate the amount you earn per click with others because the Googfather is watching you!
I have integrated Google Analytics with this blog and it tells me that I am currently getting around 15-30 visits everyday with an all time bounce rate average of 42.3%. Only two days ago, I have changed the blog's layout a little as well as some fonts and colors. After looking at the stats for the following two days, this is what I get: bounce rate dropped by 10-15%! For those of you who don't know what the bounce rate is, it is the rate at which surfers quit your site within 10 seconds. So let's say that if my bounce rate is 33%, then it means that one visitor in three that goes to my blog quits within less than 10 seconds - get it? I've done some Google searches and found out that websites usually have bounce rates around 40% and having a bounce rate under 25% is supposedly very hard. I will keep an eye out on my bounce rate but I have to admit that with the few daily visits that I get, the statistics are somehwat unreliable and should vary considerably from day to day.
About my ads - well I used to have a 300*250 pixel rectangle adsense ad on top but it kept on showing "get rich quick" type of ads so I decided to replace that with more relevant ads that can actually be usefull to the reader. I have since joined the Pepperjam Network and now I get to choose exactly what ads I place, where I place them, and I get paid a share for each referral I make. Commissions are pretty interesting too; for example I get 100$, yes 100$! if someone gets to host his blog with SuperGreenHosting through my square ad. And by the way there were multiple hosting companies that I could have chosen to partner with but I chose SuperGreenHosting
So I was saying - I ended up putting some relevant ads in the place where Adsense used to be and I've switched the Adsense ads to the bottom. I've also blended them to match the font and background of my blog as suggested in the Adsense guidelines - will keep you updated on how my Adsense performs. The blog design satisfies me for now and the ads too, and will therefore try to focus my attention more on traffic. At the time that I am writing this, google has indexed only one page of my site and that is the about page. I do hope I get more pages indexed over the following couple of days/weeks because getting found on search engines is a very valuable income resource. Also let me remind you that I am not allowed to spend any kind of money to help me out, only money that I have already earned online is allowed to be invested. And by money earned I don't mean money that is written in my reports, I mean real tangible money that has arrived through the mail already and that has been processed into my bank account! Ok boys well that's all for today, I hope that you've enjoyed this post and I remind you that your criticism or feedback is always welcome. See you next time!
Making money on the internet can get hard at times or even seem impossible, but you have no excuse to not give it your best try. There are many products out there that seem to position themselves as a magic pill and that just by buying them many beginners believe that they will automatically start making heaps of money as the photos and testimonials on the sales page suggest. Sadly, this is not the case and nobody is going to make any money for you, only your discipline and hard work will help you earn money online. Here I dressed up a list of the main options you have into making money online.
1. Blogging for dollars
Blogging is a convenient way to make money online. Typically the blogger produces content that attracts readers to their blogs. The traffic generated on the blog is valuable because the readers have wants and needs and also have financial power to buy a certain product. Therefore the traffic can be monetized by turning readers into customers of different products and services - this can be done simply by joining ad networks and displaying ads on the blog. Joining different ad networks and affiliate programs is actually the easier part and I'll get into that on another post, but the more challenging part consists in getting readers and traffic to a blog/site. There's also many tactics one can use to get traffic, and it will be covered in another post as well - for today, I just want to quickly go over the main ways to make money online.
2.Consulting/Coaching
A consultant is someone expert in a field who, for a fee, gives lessons and advises individuals or businesses on a given subject. From chess lessons to psychological help and small business consulting, there is a wide range of consulting services out there but to gain trust from potential customers, you need to be recognized as a specialist in your field and also have a good overall reputation. Some sites like ether.com provide a way to connect in a one-on-one setting and you can set your own hourly rates. However you need to do all the advertising so you should at least have a web page with your portfolio on it.
3. Selling on Ebay
Apparently many people are making a living from ebay...just find a wholesale provider in your area or on the internet that you can buy products from and resell them for bellow retail price on ebay for a profit. Some people do it part time to complement their other sources of revenue. I actually knew a guy at school involved with selling on ebay but it's been a while that I haven't heard of him.
4. Drop Shipping
Drop shipping is a method of selling goods but without the inventory space involved. Typically, you partner with a special wholesale company that gives you access to their products at wholesale price while setting your own prices to your customers. It is a similar concept than that of affiliate programs but has the advantage of custommers remembering your own webstore name and brand and not the one of affiliates. After you make a sale, the drop ship company takes care of both the shipping and the packaging and they usually put your labels/logos on the box, leaving you with a nice little profit margin. But to find customers to your site in the first place, you will need a decent level of traffic on your webstore/website. My personal impression is that drop shipping doesn't work well : simply because it is not real wholesale and it does not escape basic economic principles - think about it, someone that buys one thousand copies of a product is likely to get it for much cheaper than somebody that buys just a single product. Most drop shipping companies also charge you a flat monthly fee for accessing their website and services. However since I have not personally tried this and that a few websites seem to do this, I have decided to still put it as a way to make money online.
5. Making money from Forums/Discussion groups
There are many forums out there that will let you have a signature with a link at the end of your posts. If you are part of any affiliate programs then you can use your affiliate links as a signature in those forums/discussion groups. If someone from the forum or even a non-registered user clicks that link and makes a purchase, enters a zip code or whatever it is that the affiliate action is then you will get a commission. This concept is just like a website's ad exposure, but instead of doing it from a website, you do it right from your forum posts. Therefore, you can join multiple forums that allows you to have a signature and extend your reach by posting in a variety of forums. Also keep in mind that junk posts that don't contribute much will be deleted and probably get you banned. A good strategy would be to start new topics that would engage replies and keep the topic on the top of the list, gaining more exposure this way. If you consistently help people with their questions and really add value to the community then you will gain trust and people will just be more likely to click on your affiliate links. An example of a good affiliate would be the Pepperjam Network.
6. Completing surveys
This is probably the worst way to make money online. Indeed, companies do want to know consumer's opinions in order to generate more sales, but what they don't want is to put money in your pockets. If you're lucky and have a fast pace, you can expect 5-10$/hour but not more. Survey sites make money usually by expecting to get you discouraged and quit before you've even reached the minimum funds required for the payout. This method is NOT recommended... however if you're still keen to try then you can always go to Surveys4cash.com
7. Freelancing
A freelance worker or freelancer is a self-employed person who does jobs without a long term commitment to a particular employer. Freelancing is especially common in the areas of writing, editing and proofreading, software development, website design, website promotion, copy editing and others. Since the internet is a worldwide economy, there is a considerable number of freelance jobs that are took by students or people living in poor countries. The possibilities in freelancing are limitless because of the fact that your time is flexible and you don't have a boss to always tell you what to do, a good freelancer should at least have a blog/website showing his portfolio and/or the services he offers.
8. Creating your own content/product
A good number of people are putting their articles into ebook format and up for sale on sites like clickbank.com , where a whole community of webmasters - big and small - can promote their e-books for a cut on the sale price. If your e-book is good, it will have unlimited financial potential because of the large reach it has on affiliate networks like clickbank.com. If you're good with videos you can also make money off those as there is a huge potential for videos on the web; an example is with the stunning success of Susan Boyle over Youtube and the internet.
9. Internet real estate / flipping websites
It is a known trend that people are watching less television and instead spending more of that time on the internet. Subsequently, there is more and more money poured into the internet by companies wanting to reach out customers, not even the economic lowdowns have slowed that trend. As more businesses and individuals are looking to grab a portion of internet space, the value of domain names is increasing. All you need is a bit of imagination as swell as some pocket change to grab an available domain name resell the site for profit. There's also a number of websites that are for sale, and if you think that they have potential, then you can flip them for profit. Websites typically sell for about 5 to 20 times the price of their monthly income and as for domain names it depends on whether the name is catchy and easy to remember, premium domain names can sell for hundreds of thousands to millions. But for the sake of being conservative, I'd say that a new, quickly made website can easily go for a hundred bucks or more. This method is worth considering, having a good judgment here is critical.A good place to buy/sell websites would be on the digitalpoint forums
10. Starting an online business
If you have enough money and experience, you can also startup an online business. For example you can hire bloggers and build a network of blogs or information sites, you can start a web hosting company, start up a large news company, etc. It's basically hiring people to do work, keeping a cut of the income and paying a share to your employees. Importing/exporting is also in this category. The internet has opened up a lot of potential into this field. If you have enough money to play with then you can make the contact between wholesale suppliers and retailers and get a cut of the transaction. I'm not at this stage yet but my day will come!!
As you can see, there are many ways to make money online and most of them do not require much money if at all. In all these ways there is a chance for you to not be successful..as with everything else in life after all. But if you're decided and really have a strong will to make money online then I don't see why you can't achieve it. Most people don't even know that you have a reasonable chance to make money from the internet and work from home so if someone calls you crazy then you should ignore them. Remember, live your own life and your own dreams - not the one of others. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger... but still, eat your brocoli!
Well I hope you enjoyed this article, if I've missed anything and you'd like to add something or share an experience then feel free to comment below.
Hello everyone, welcome aboard! My name is Alex and I'm a college student as well as an aspiring entrepreneur. Recently, I have been discussing the notion of Making Money Online with some relatives. While the vast majority of them were not even aware of that possibility, others were skeptical, saying that it would be too hard to make money online. And yet I see a significant share of optimism on forums and discussion groups in general, not mentioning those marketers selling their supposedly "secrets" ; it really isn't easy knowing who to trust anymore or what to do.
It is for that reason that I am starting an experiment; it is an experiment aimed to test out e-business and online money making possibilities from the little guy's perspective, an experiment everyone can access for free, one that could possibly help you make money online and brighten your future. My friends, I have the same dream as many of you which is to make a comfortable living online working from home. It's definitely the time for me to stop reading the get rich quick schemes out there and to really find out what it's like to make money(or not) on the Internet. This blog will chronicle my attempts and struggles to earn money on the Internet while using and experimenting various tools and methods. Hopefully you guys can use my reports and experiences to your advantage by following proven methods while avoiding my personal mistakes. I'd like to mention that my starting budget is 10$ to buy the domain name and that I have no programming experience or knowledge whatsoever. I'm starting right away!
If you'd like to keep track of my journal of online adventure$ then you can subscribe for updates by email or via rss (I'll put new stuff once or twice per week). Also I really enjoy reading comments so if you're reading this then make sure you're dropping a comment! and you can even join the community I'm starting up. Cheers for this fresh start, thanks for visiting, and get ready to witness a success story (or failure) in the making!
