A Thank You Biscuit - Or Is It A Cookie?

As it's a new month tomorrow - and don't they come around quickly - a few 'thank you' links.

Firstly to the Top Five Blog Referrers for October. By this I mean other blogs who have sent me traffic. Okay, here they are.

1. Make Money Fa$t
My New Zealand mate, Rob, runs this excellent blog. It's always a good read. Recently he set himself a challenge to make $500 from blogging in five days. He didn't quite hit his target but did manage a healthy $459.79. If he tries again in the future I'm sure he'll hit the target and more besides. He has the right positive approach to blogging.

2. Active Duty Military Money and Matters
This gentleman is a is a 'LTJG in the Uniformed Service. He is not a financial advisor, however, he has a lot advice on money due to his life experiences.' Vause regularly appears in my Top Five Referrers.

3. Web-Dosh
Another regular in my Top Five and the blog is described as 'an investigation into whether ther Internet can be used to make money.' And, of course, we know that it can!

4. Money Money Money
I don't know a lot about this blog's author other than what she writes on her profile page: 'I'm a British female who loves blogging. Am interested in money, fashion and books, hence my blogs!' Mmmm, I see the logic in this - think I must get my wife blogging!

5. Internet Bazaar Tips.
Another money making blog with posts on making money online and with blogging. I notice that the first couple of posts, on the blog, aren't loading properly. Hopefully this'll be corrected if you decide to visit.

The Top Five will be entered in the left hand side column for all of November.

It's interesting, well it is to me, that all five blogs are about making money and are all on Blogspot. What does that say? Goodness knows - sometimes it's possible to analyse everything too much!

Besides search engines the other top five referrers to this blog for October have been:

1. Blog Mad. Not too sure why I've started getting hits from here. It's a traffic exchange program which I joined way back when I first started blogging. I haven't been to the site for ages. Just a quick point about traffic exchanges - it's against Google 'rules' to use these if you have AdSense on your site.

2. StumbleUpon
I'm sure most readers know all about StumbleUpon. As they say: 'It helps you discover and share great websites.'

3. sphinn
Not something I have ever joined but I get a visitors from here. Their website description: 'Internet Marketing News & Discussion Forums.'

4. Instant Hypnosis
This is a strange one. I wrote a sponsored post for them through PayPerPost and now I'm getting referrals from their site. See - nothing wrong with sponsored posts!

5. Webtrh
This blog has been mentioned on this Czech forum and I've had some traffic as a consequence. Unfortunately I can't read the website as I don't understand their language.

The above shows how, once you have established a blog, traffic can arrive from the most unexpected sources.

Regarding links in general they are now on my Blog Links page - all welcome.

Good luck for November,
Mike.

Money Making With Amazon

Today I'm continuing with programs with which I have tried to make money. I'm still on the A's and today it's the old favourite Amazon.

Like a lot of people I've used Amazon for years for buying bits and pieces, mostly books. It is said that, with any form of selling, you have to like the products. Remembering this fact, it didn't therefore take me long to sign on as an affiliate when I started my blogs twelve months back.

Unfortunately everything that 'is said' isn't necessarily true. I haven't been over successful with making money with Amazon. In fact it's mostly been a waste of time to date.

As an example for this month (29 days) I have had 1760 clicks to the Amazon website. Now that sounds good - it's around 60 clicks per day. But that's the best bit! All of these clicks have only amounted to two sales and commission of £1.29 (about $3.55).

As I'm sure we all appreciate there are lots of positive things to say about being an Amazon affiliate but first the negative and, I suppose, the reality - at least as far as my experience goes.

Cons
1. The commission isn't too hot at only 5%.
2. A lot of the products are low priced (i.e. books, CD's and DVD's) and therefore the commission doesn't amount to much when you get a sale for such items. Yes, there are more expensive items but my own sales have only been books, CD's and maps - not sure why maps.
3. I'm an affiliate for the UK Amazon, but a lot of my visitors come from other countries and are therefore unlikely to actually buy from the UK website, where prices are shown in UK currency.

Trying now to be positive, Amazon is generally improving their selling aids and these make up a lot of their good points.

Pros
1. A reliable, established company.
2. Low payout figure (just £10 in UK - about $20)
3. Lots of promotional tools which include:
(a) Have your own aStore - or several if you wish.
(b) Slideshows, as above.
(c) Product clouds.
(d) Favourite and Wish lists.
(e) Context links - I use these on my celebrity blog.
(f) Banners and search boxes.
(g) Product links .... and so on and so on.

To Sum Up
To be successful with Amazon I feel that you need good traffic from the same country as per the Amazon website which you are promoting.

I'm trying out a new blog I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here which is aimed at UK residents. It's about the reality show, of the same name, which starts on November 12th. It'll only be a short run blog as the series doesn't last very long but it's more of a trial or experiment to see if I can make some money from UK products. I've got Amazon context ads on the blog.

I just wish I could say that the Amazon affiliate programme is fantastic but, based on my own experience I can't. Perhaps I haven't been promoting it properly. It might be solely my fault but I keep on thinking that 5% commission is pretty poor no matter how you look at it.

Mike's Rating: 2/5

It's always good and I suppose easy to write about money making programs where we have been successful. It's just as important though to show that not everything that glitters is gold. Hopefully you will have been much more successful with Amazon than I have.

Good luck,
Mike.

All Change Money Making

As regular readers will see I have changed the template for this blog. I purposely kept it as standard for a full year but now feel it's time to move on a little.

As someone or other is supposed to have once said: "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." Or something like that!

I must say, however, that the Blogger standard templates have done me okay and they weren't in any way a hindrance to making money - at least not to my knowledge. There can always be an argument that, with a better layout, I might just have made a bit more cash than I did. This is difficult to quantify.

What I always wanted to do was to prove that money could in fact be made with free blogs, and without any cash being necessary to start up. It's also why I never bothered with getting my own domain name. I wanted to prove to my own satisfaction that virtually anyone can make money blogging.

I'll keep the post short today as there are a few bits and pieces I have to get done. One thing I will mention, before I finish, is - links.

If your link is normally on this blog I won't forget to include it again, but it will probably be in a slightly different format. The five links that refer the most visitors will be shown monthly on the home page and the others will be on another page. There will be a link to the links at the top of each page. Hope that makes sense!

That's all for today.

Good luck,
Mike.

Getting Those Search Engine Referrals And PR

Following on from my previous post about PageRank. I've been reading that some bloggers seem to believe that if their PR has been reduced this will in some way effect the number of search engine referrals that they get each day or week.

From my own experience I don't think that PR is all that relative to your blog's positioning on the search engines - though I know some of the 'experts' want us to believe the opposite.

If we take my celebrity blog as an example this has been running for 144 days. The blog still has a rock bottom PR0 but it is getting and average of 600 referrals a day from search engines and 87.65% of these are from Google. You can see the figures for yourself on this post (86522 divided by 144 days)

As I have written before I believe it is the content of posts that will decide as to where your blog figures on the search engines.

What we write, combined with proper use of the right keywords, determines how many referrals will arrive from the search engines and not PageRank. Well at least that's what I have found to be true.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Give Your House Some Kerb Appeal

What a difference a driveway makes.

By this I mean that if the driveway to your house is a little past it's sell by date it tends to pull down the whole outside appearance of your home. And, of course, a smart new driveway does the opposite. It transforms the look of homes and I suspect that it also pushes up the value as well.

There are some great choices for driveways nowadays. I like the interlocking brick styles, which are very popular, but for my own home I think a more rustic look would be best.

Anglian, the home improvements people, have over 40 combinations of styles and colours of driveways on offer. I also see that they supply 60mm blocks which retain their strength far longer than the regular 50mm blocks.

Give your house some kerb appeal with a little help from Anglian.

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Money Making Updates: Voxant, WidgetBucks, ShoppingAds

A few readers have been following my progress with Voxant, the News feed opportunity, and have been asking if I've been paid as yet. Afraid the answer is no.

I emailed them yesterday to clarify their payment procedure. I joined on September 24th and to date I've earned $256.27 but I prefer to recommend money making programs after I have received payment.

I was very impressed with the speed of their reply to my email, even if it wasn't quite the answer I was hoping for.

It seems they have got two differing time scales for payment printed on their website. The first, and the one I read, states: 'You'll receive your check within 30 days following the last day of the month in which it was earned.' According to this I should receive the September payment by the 30th of October - at least that's how I understand it.

In their reply, however, they write: 'We actually process the checks at the end of the following month which is part of our payment process. If you made the $50 threshold minimum in September your check will be processed at the end of this month and you will receive your check at the beginning of next month.' So that is slightly different.

They also sent me an attachment, with the email, that they require completing and returning to them by fax, or mail, prior to them being able to send out any checks. The form, something called a W-8, is for taxation purposes.

I'll keep you informed regarding actual receipt of any payment as I know a few bloggers have also joined Voxant.

Moving on to ShoppingAds, which I mentioned on Tuesday. Early days but it hasn't exactly gone down a storm as yet.

I've been trying out their ads (see side column) as a trial. To date I've had 3717 page impressions which has resulted in only 1 click giving earnings of 26 cents. So not too impressive so far. I'm not convinced as to the possible success with such ads unless you have a blog that has a specific, defined, niche. If the blog is about photography, for instance, then camera ads would do okay but with a money making or personal blog I'm not so sure.

Moving on again. I'll be doing my own trial on WidgetBucks hopefully next week - unless, that is, I make a bundle with ShoppingAds! I've joined WidgetBucks because they are offering $25 for signing up. This means you only have to 'earn' $25 to make $50, which can't be bad.

That's it for today.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Look Out Look Out There Are Bed Bugs About!

I saw a television programme on bed bugs last week and it gave me the shivers. To think these little blighters suck on your blood while you are sleeping. Yuk!

It seems that bed bugs are everywhere, well not quite, but they aren't too fussy on where they do their feeding. They often spread because of all of the traveling we do nowadays. They might, for example, crawl in your luggage, even if they haven't got a passport, and before you know where you are you've got unwanted lodgers!

So what are the bed bug symptoms? Little red bite marks may appear on your body or there could be dark spots on your mattress and so on.

Is there a cure? Well my mother used to say: 'If they bite, squeeze them tight and they won't come another night.' But there are no doubt better ways!

If you want to know more about bed bugs have a read of the Bed Bugs Guide.

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PageRank Is Silly!

There seems to have been much beating of chests and aggravated cries since the new PageRank has been released. Many money making blogs, and others as well, have found their PR's have been reduced and some quite dramatically. Oh dear!

Rumours abound as to why this has happened. Everything from selling links and too many exchange links to interlinking blogs and - well all sorts of theories.

I think what is illustrated is how silly PageRank really is!

An example, take the excellent ProBlogger which has now been reduced to a PR4 and compare this with one of my one page blogs How To become Wealthy (HTBW) which also has a PR4 and is allowed to stagnate. It's only ever had one post and I can't remember when I last visited it myself.

Problogger gets 10,000+ readers a day and is packed with several years of good, sound information. HTBW averages 5 - yes 5 hits per day! According to PageRank, in theory, HTBW is as 'important' as Problogger. How silly is that?

The drop in many bloggers PR's also emphasises the power of Google. They can virtually do what they want with PR and penalise who they want. Really a grading or ranking system should be independent of any major company.

It's true that PR can affect sponsored posts, and perhaps the value of ads and links, but the real questions we have to ask ourselves is:

(1) What is the purpose of us blogging?
(2) What is our traffic?

These are what really matters. Are we blogging to make money, promote a product, to inform others, to give our opinions etc? Whatever it is just get on with it! And you'll most likely succeed, whatever your intentions, if you increase your traffic to a healthy supply. Q.E.D.

So what if PR doesn't like us any more (I've also got Technorati not liking me!). It doesn't matter as long as we keep things in proportion. We can overcome anything with a little thought and perhaps a change of strategy.

Whatever your PR,

Good luck,
Mike.

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Find The Right Printer Cartridge At The Right Price

Most of us have a printer of some sort or other and, of course, the printer cartridges need to be replaced from time to time - and at the right price.

A website that can help with this is Cartridge Finder. They have an interface of something like 10,000 different models of printer, copier, and fax machines. So even if you aren't sure which replacement cartridge you may require you should be able to solve that problem pretty quickly.
Once you find the cartridge you require Cartridge Finder will check PriceGrabber listings to find you the best price for the product you need.

Problem solved: Find the product you want at the right price with Cartridge Finder.

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Money Making With AuctionAds

Today I'm continuing with programs I have tried to make money with. Today it's still another 'A' - AuctionAds.

AuctionAds started out fine for me the first month but it's gone downhill ever since as far as I am concerned. So much so that I have now erased all of their ads from my blogs. The main faults were:

(a) Ads not always appearing on the blogs - not the best way to make money!
(b) Hardly any clicks - so not worth devoting space to them (less than 0.08% this month)
(c) I wasn't happy with their accounting stats. Can't comment on this further as I don't have any proof.

I persevered with AuctionAds for three months, so it was a fair trial. I can't therefore really recommend them now to others but ...

Probably like a lot of other people I had an email from their President, Patrick Gavin (I do love fancy titles!), about their new program ShoppingAds and, as you will see, I'm trying them out in the side column. It will only be a short trial as I've promised that I'll have a go with WidgetBucks soon (I'll give full info on WidgetBucks once I start but at the moment there is a $25 bonus for joining). ShoppingAds will have to give a promising return quickly for me to keep it on my blogs.

To Sum Up
AuctionAds: Mike's Rating: 1/5

ShoppingAds: Will let you know how it goes after about a week.

WidgetBucks: More info to follow.

Good luck,
Mike.

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One Address For Your Mobile and For Your email.

Here's a free service that could be very useful for business as well as for your friends and family. What about an email address that is also your mobile phone number as well?

This is a simple but effective idea from RedInbox. What you get is your own phone email address - i.e. yourphonenumber@redinbox.co.uk. Note this service is for USA residents as well as those within the UK.

What it in effect means is that you can look at your mobile phone address book and automatically know everyone's email address.

All emails sent are forwarded to one or more email addresses of your choice, so there's not an extra log in to worry about.

Just go to the RedInbox website for full details. If you are in the USA there is a flag, on the website, to direct you to the American info.

To recap. It's spam free, easy for people to remember and emails are forwarded straight to your existing email address. Got to be worth a look!

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Money Making Weekly Report - w/e 21-Oct-07

I've had a few emails asking if I'm going to do my Money Making Weekly Reports as I have done over the last year. I probably won't on a regular basis for various reasons. However, as I've been asked, here's my earnings from blogging for the last week i.e. week-ending 21st. October.

Actually in some respects it wasn't a particularly good week. Figures are best looked at on a monthly basis, or even quarterly. As you probably know actual payments can, in some cases, take a while to physically get into your own bank account. It's only then that the money is really earned.

Anyway, enough of the excuses!

Money Made Last Week
PayPerPost - $129.00
I consider this to be a good week.
Voxant - $42.64
Could do better!
AdSense - $39.23
Disappointing, as I have previously made regular days of $20+
Amazon - £0.41 = $0.82
Chicken feed - I just can't get Amazon working well.
FriendFinder - $26.67
Have done a heap better than this, another 'disappointing'.
Miscellaneous - $27.22
Mostly for ads/links.

Total for w/e 21-Oct-07 = $265.58

There are also small amounts from the likes of SexyAds, Helium, myLot etc., which I have mentioned in previous Weekly Reports, but they are not really worth including in this particular weeks total. SexyAds, for example, I only know what I've earned monthly.

The total for the week isn't anything special, it would work out to $13,810 for a full year.

The positive thing is that for exactly the same week last year (2006) the money I made from blogging was $3.86! It was only my fourth week of trying to make money with free blogs. I wrote at the end of my Weekly Report: 'I've told my wife to hold fire on ordering a new car!'

I always think that the important thing is to set targets or objectives and try to achieve these. I've set myself some for blogging and what I hope to achieve by this time next year - providing I'm still blogging away and haven't moved on to something else, you never know in life!

Money, of course, isn't everything in life - far from it - but it's always better to have it than not. And it's always better still when you actually make it yourself. My blogging money goes into a high interest bank account and is used for travel, holidays and weekends away.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Bloggers Need Stamina

As it's the weekend I thought I'd move away from what I have been writing about since I had my break away. Here's something I have been reading about blogs in general.

Most bloggers don't have any stamina! Only 55% are still posting three months after creating their blog.

To me this is an indication as to why many don't achieve what they hope from blogging, whether this be making money, converting the world or launching some great idea or product. They simply don't keep going long enough.

The reality is that it takes longer than three months to get established within the blogosphere (I really don't like that word!). There are exceptions, but generally you have to have the stamina and determination to keep going for at least a year.

A lot of businesses still don't realise the power of having a blog. It's an almost essential aid for any company. One reason is that blogs get picked up quickly by the search engines. I've been messing around with a new blog, about a forthcoming reality television programme, and Google sent me referrals from day two. Okay, only a couple a day at the moment but this will hopefully grow. The point is that it didn't take any fancy SEO for Google to find the blog.

It's now said that 120,000 new blogs are created each day, which is 1.4 new blogs every second, and that the total number of blogs now stands at 70 million. 1.5 million posts are made each day.
These numbers shouldn't put others off from starting a blog. Remember over half will pack it all in within three months and an estimated 350,000 blogs started each week are only splogs - spam blogs.

The population of the world, in July, was 6,602,224,175 so 70,000,000 blogs is only a small percentage. We haven't seen anything, as yet, as to the full potential of a quality blog.

Good luck (and to England in the Rugby World Cup tonight)
Mike.

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Garage Conversions Offer More Living Space

Sometimes a company gets known for a certain product and we tend to overlook the other things that they do.

Take Anglian Home Improvements, for example, to me they are synonymous with double glazed windows, but they do a whole lot more within the home improvements market.

As well as the usual uPVC windows and doors they also do conservatories, rooftrim, driveways, garage doors, kitchens and also, something I wasn't aware of, garage conversions.

Nowadays a lot of garages aren't used for the purpose for which they were designed and are simply a place to store junk and all sorts of other bits and pieces. So why not utilise this space properly and convert it to an extra habitable room. It could become a study, an extra bedroom or living room, a children's playroom or whatever else you can imagine.

Anglian Garage Conversions can offer lots of different options. They can convert just part of the garage, for instance, leaving the rest for storage or, if you have a double garage, they can convert half for living and half for a car. There are many alternatives.

Anglian have been known as the place to go for high quality home improvements for thirty-six years. So remember, Anglian aren't just for windows they do a whole lot more besides.

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Making Money With Adult Friend Finder

Carrying on from yesterday I'm looking at different programs I've used to make money with free blogs.

As I'm doing this in alphabetical order it's another 'A' today - Adult Friend Finder.

Normally when I mention this I call it Friend Finder but the truth is that it is the more adult natured of their websites, AdultFriendFinder, that makes the most money.

Obviously this won't appeal to everyone. It doesn't particularly appeal to me but the money it can produce does. And after all, it's up to individuals as to the lifestyle that they want to live.

As you will see below, to date, I have made $705.68 from AdultFriendFinder, without including their other websites.


The thing though, about this opportunity, is that once you sign up, as an affiliate, you can promote any, or all, of their 20+ friendship websites. These range in 'strength', for want of a better word, from Christian and Jewish friendship to Adults and Bondage!

I have tried promoting several of their sites including ones specifically for certain countries such as French, Filipino, German, Indian and so on but the fact is that the top two, that produce the most income are:
Adult Friend Finder and Friend Finder
The commission is good and I have always been paid by them (via check) on time and as specified.

On most of their websites there are three options as to how you can earn your money: (1) Per Member, (2) Percentage of Order or (3) Per Order.

Per Member is really per click. Percentage is as it says, you get a percentage of what the customer spends and Per Order is a flat payment for every order obtained.

There is a huge amount of advertising and promotional material, though some of the adult stuff isn't suitable for family blogs.

If you can fit the material into your blog, and have the right traffic some of the FriendFinder websites may be worth considering.

It's all well run and efficient. I mentioned a few weeks back that I had a query with them and they answered my email and sorted it out within 24 hours. To date I can't fault them.


Good luck,
Mike.

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Fancy Living In Las Vegas?

I toured the west coast of the USA by car a couple of years back. I saw the main sights including: San Francisco, LA and Hollywood, Yosemite, Monterrey, Palm Springs, Grand Canyon - and then there was Las Vegas. What a place!

I only stayed for three days at the Las Vegas Hilton, where Elvis Presley used to perform, but it's definitely somewhere I won't forget and, with a bit of luck, hope to see again.

I saw some of the las vegas homes and it struck me as to what a crazy place this would be to live. There's so much going on, all of the glitz and glamor and then, of course, the non stop gambling.

Would I live there? Not too sure if I would, but there must be many people who would love the life style offered. Take a look at the las vegas homes website and see if you'd be tempted by some of the great homes for sale and to rent.

Making Money With AdSense

Following my series of posts Making Money With Free Blogs - The Truth I though I'd continue by running through some of the ways I have tried to make money since I started blogging.

I'll go through them alphabetically - the good as well as the bad.

Today I'll therefore start with the one which most readers will know: AdSense.

I've read some blogs where they have been quite snooty - for want of a better word - about AdSense. Not sure why. I can only go on my experience and I've found that this works well on my type of blogs.

The figure on the right is what Google 'owes' me at today's date. This money will be paid direct into my bank account at the beginning of next month. All of my previous payments for Adsense were paid exactly on time, so I'm confident this $300+ will be as well.

The truth is though that to make decent money with AdSense you need decent traffic. Everything revolves around how many clicks you are likely to get on the ads shown on your blog.

There are a couple of snags. First, their payout amount is quite high at $100 minimum. This will take a while to reach on low traffic blogs. The good news is though that the money rolls over from month to month and they will definitely pay you - unless, that is, you break or contravene any of their Terms and Conditions.

This is actually the second snag. Make sure you follow the rules and are also fully aware of their Programme Policies. For example, a few weeks after I first started with AdSense I received a 'warning' from them about using hit exchanges. At the time I didn't realise that this was a no-no as far as they were concerned.

The ads themselves work well if you have a definite niche, or subject matter, as they are related to your blog's content. If you tend to write about many things the ads can sometimes become a little obscure.

Where you place the ads on your blog page can make a difference to the number of clicks produced. There is good advice from Google on their Help Centre under Where should I place Google ads on my pages?. I get the best response from top right.

Their Google Help Centre covers most subjects which AdSense newbies might want to know.

Out of interest I started using Google AdSense as soon as I had done my first post, on my first blog. After two weeks I had made the grand total of 87c! And my total earnings for everything (AdSense, Amazon, YouGov) was a massive $4.48. At the time I wrote: 'Not exactly a fortune. But every journey has to have a small first step - well that's what I'm telling myself!' And this proved to be the case.

If you haven't made that first step as yet - do it! All it will cost you is some time.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Looking At Search Engines From Both Sides

I suppose like a lot of people I often equate the words 'search engine' with Google. It is after all what I use mostly when following up stories for my celebrity blogs.

I must say that generally Google comes up with the goods. It did for my biggest celebrity story, which was when I was seeking information on George Clooney's girlfriend Sarah Larson.

I guess I hit lucky as, after wading through dozens of pages, I discovered something that was not generally known about Sarah and came up with an exclusive story. The story brought me more traffic than I thought possible so, yes, Google works for me.

Of course I have also seen the other side of search engines when I want people to find something I have published. This is where some good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is necessary.

If you are looking for first class search engine optimization in Chicago then digitalthirdcoast.net may be the answer. As they say, 'if a beautiful website can't be found on all of the major search engines, it's beauty will never be seen'. How true that is.



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Making Money With Free Blogs - Putting It All Together

Over the last three days I've suggested that their are three main ways to make money with free blogs - the third being a combination of the first two, which is the method I favour. If you missed these three posts you can read them here:

Making Money With Free Blogs - The Truth - Part 1
Making Money With Free Blogs - The Truth - Part 2
Making Money With Free Blogs - The Truth - Part 3

I favour the combination method because this widens your scope. It's really the old cliche about not putting all of your eggs in one basket.

If you go just for writing sponsored posts you may do exceedingly well, but what happens if they should dry up for a short period, or you can't find the right opportunities offered suitable for your blog? The simple answer is that your income dips.

And it's the same with say relying on one affiliate program or with one set of advertising content. Things can go wrong, through no fault of your own, and again income can disappear.

As an example of this I'll mention my fall out with Commission Junction. Well I didn't fall out, but for some reason they closed my account owing me about $56. I never found out why because they didn't respond to my emails after this happened. The feeling is that they must have thought I was doing something fraudulent to get clicks - which I wasn't. The reason doesn't really matter now, I've moved on, but it illustrates how if I had been relying on just CJ for my money I would have been down to a big fat zero. (In fairness I would add that many people are very happy with CJ).

I would suggest that you build a portfolio of advertising, affiliate programs and sponsored posts. I love the expression: 'streams of income' but this is what you can establish with blogging. Some of the streams may be only small ripples but when they join together they can gush quite nicely.

It's good to test out different things to see what actually works on your particular blog. If they don't work ditch them. Always play to strengths not weaknesses - another cliche: you can't flog a dead horse!

Whatever course you follow the two things that you will need to help you on your way are: (1) a decent PageRank and (2) lots of Traffic.

To read more about PageRank I suggest you read Tom's The Quest For The Golden Google PageRank and for Traffic my post from March 07 Money Making With Free Blogs.

The reason for lots of Traffic is as I wrote previously: blogging is generally a numbers game.

As for PageRank it's as I said yesterday. PR has a value in that it can determine how much you are paid for writing sponsored posts and also for running ads or links on your blog. The higher the PageRank the more you are likely to earn.

I'll carry on another time talking about individual affiliate programs etc., that I have experienced, and how I have got on with them.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Making Money With Free Blogs - The Truth - Part 3

Following on from yesterday today we look at Making Money With Sponsored Posts.

As an example of sponsored posts you can see the last two I have written here and here. They are simply short articles, or reviews, on nominated subjects. In doing this you are paid anything from $5 to $100 or even more.

I do my sponsored posts through PayPerPost but there are several other websites that offer similar systems.

Now before you get too excited about the likes of getting $100 for writing short reviews the reality is that you probably won't get this much unless you have a blog with a high PageRank.

This blog has a PageRank 5 and I normally get around $15 to $35 for writing a sponsored post with PPP. I noticed today, for instance, that there was an offer that would pay $10.50 for a review by a PR3 blog but $20.50 for a PR5 or above.

This is an illustration of why PageRank sometimes matters.

With the websites running these sponsored post programs there are certain criteria that you have to meet before you are accepted. Normally blogs must have been running for three months and have at least 20 posts. Needless to say they won't accept adult blogs or anything controversial. My celebrity blog was turned down for example - probably because there is sometimes naughty(ish) stuff about celebs.

As I see it, it's quite easy to make some decent money with sponsored blogs if you plan things properly. I would suggest running a few blogs and keep these updated regularly for three months plus and then join PayPerPost or something similar - or why not join several.

After this period you should be a able to easily write two, three or more sponsored posts daily -and this will add up to a nice income.

When you start off writing sponsored posts you may only be offered say $5 but don't let this put you off. I once said that I wouldn't write a post for this amount, but it will get anyone started earning money and gradually this will increase.

If you write say three sponsored posts a day at only $5 each this will still give you over $100 a week. Of course if they are $20 each it would give you $420 per week - and so on.

In some ways this is a method of making money with free blogs that can be very successful but just think ...

If you combined this with what I talked about yesterday i.e. Making money with affiliate programs and running adverts ...

... then the money you make would be considerably higher still.

Will continue on this theme another day.

Good luck,
Mike.

Further reading:
Making Money With Free Blogs - The Truth - Part 2
Making Money With Free Blogs - The Truth - Part 1

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Do You Fancy A Night With Dermalogica?

So, do you fancy a night with Dermalogica?

No, she or he isn't the latest celebrity. Dermalogica is a skincare line that's known as the 'professionals choice'.

If skin is getting a little dull, with the approach of winter, you can use this no-nonsense skincare range to give your appearance a radiance boost that will leave your skin soft, velevety and glowing.

You don't need to go anywhere to get this effect, just use the products in the comfort of your own home.

A night in with dermalogica could be a night to remember!

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Making Money With Free Blogs - The Truth - Part 2

Carrying on from yesterday's post there are three main ways to make money with blogs.

Okay, there are probably more, but these are the three that will concern the majority of readers of this blog.

(1) Making money with affiliate programs and running adverts.
(2) Making money with Sponsored Posts
(3) Making money using a combination of (1) and (2)

Lets look at using affiliate programs and adverts first. To me this is the easiest method because there isn't a lot of work involved. I believe in taking the easy route in life if possible.

There is one snag, however, with this method. You need traffic, as much traffic as you can get. In most aspects, as I emphasised yesterday, it's a numbers game.

I've proved this fact to myself over and over. The day I had over 11,000 hits on my Celebrity Insider blog my AdSense commission went sky high. But when I started out in blogging, and had few visits, I only made a few cents per day - even though they were the same style ads.

Yes, you have to place your adverts in prominent positions on your blog but, even if you do this, without sufficient traffic you won't make a lot of money. But don't let this put you off. Lots of small amounts can add up to a worthwhile sum, especially when you are starting out.

Staying on the AdSense theme I've found that the best places with my particular blogs, for their ads, is top right and horizontal above the posts. Usually the 160x600 set of ads, top right, gets the most clicks.

Also with AdSense experiment with the colours of the ads, some pull more than others. Google has advice on this here.

Talking generally about running ads and affiliate programs my experience is that most banners are a waste of space. There are always the exceptions but I don't feel that they produce sufficient in ratio to the space they take up.

For me, small text ads at the end of a post get better results. Best of all though is if you can incorporate the affiliate program within your actual posts. This always works best (for me). I don't mean necessarily by blatant advertising but sometimes by introducing whatever it is into the theme of your post.

With this post that I am writing now, for instance, I'll most likely get more clicks for AdSense information than if I had one of their 'Generate revenue from your website' banners - simply because I have used a couple of links for the word AdSense.

I'm not going into depth here about individual affiliate programs, I'll cover some of these later, but there is one big aspect of affiliate schemes that many bloggers seem to overlook. This is that most of them will pay you commission for introducing new members to the program.

I have mentioned this before but this is where you can make money by doing virtually nothing - once someone has joined under your affiliate number. Take FriendFinderGroup as an example.

This is one of my biggest earners but a lot of the money comes from business that other people produce - for which I get 10% commission. Ten introductions will therefore double your possible income.

There are therefore two important aspects of affiliate programs and the likes of AdSense.

(a) Promoting the products themselves yourself and
(b) Introducing others to the programs concerned.

I don't want to make this post too long so I'll continue another day.

Good luck,
Mike.

Making Money With Free Blogs - The Truth -1

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Save Money By Comparing Insurance Quotes

As I seem to keep saying: saving money is nearly as good as making it.

Take insurances, for example, I have saved a bundle of money by simply not automatically accepting my renewal quotations. Instead I head to an insurance comparison website, such as Gocompare.com, where they check out the best deals available for me.

My car insurance was due recently and, though I thought I already had a good deal, I saved nearly £30 by switching to another insurance company.

With Gocompare.com this is all very easy to do for all sorts of insurances from car, home and motorbike to pets, travel and other kinds of insurance as well.

Needless to say using their service is free plus they allow you to save any quotes and use these when you are ready to actually take out your insurance.

With insurance we want the cheapest deal, but we also want the right one to cover our needs. This is where Gocompare.com swings into action with their star rating service. I'll use their own words to explain this:

"For example, if during your car insurance quote you said that you wanted legal assistance, windscreen cover and breakdown cover, all those prices that are returned with five out of five stars include legal assistance, windscreen cover and breakdown cover. If there were fewer stars then the price returned would be missing a level(s) of cover you requested."

Their star rating therefore offers you an informed choice. Sounds a good idea!

So if you have an insurance renewal coming up soon give Gocompare.com a try. It could well save you money.

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Making Money With Free Blogs - The Truth

As I mentioned before I had my short break away I have now been blogging for a full year. I have also reached a few conclusions about making money with free blogs.

Firstly, there is a lot of garbage written by some so called experts. They tell you, for instance, that it's necessary to have a proper domain name, a well designed website and that you have to spend money to succeed. They also spout lots of other rules about SEO, keywords and so on.

Okay some of these extras may be able to help you along the way but the reality is that you don't need all this - unless you particularly want to go down that route.

Like all 'experts' they like to mystify the subject they write about. It makes them sound all the more important when they use special abbreviations and dress up what they say in fancy words.
The truth about making money with blogging is in fact quite simple.

First it's about what you write. It doesn't have to be extra well written, it's just got to be either useful or entertaining. If you are lucky enough to be able to do both so much the better.

I was reading about Alice Cooper recently and, no, I'm not a fan! I am interested though in anyone who has been successful in any field. Anyway, Alice said that when he started out he was up against the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Motown and so on. So he rehearsed. Nine-tenths of his time was devoted to songs and only one-tenth to his image.

In Cooper's words, "If you don't have good songs you're no more than a puppet show."

If you are talking about blogs you can substitute the word 'songs' for 'content'.

The right content solves nearly all of the problems that experts tell us that we'll have to overcome to make money with blogs. It really is that simple.

The other simple truth is: the more traffic you have the more money you'll make.

Yes, blogging is generally a numbers game. There are exceptions but I'll cover this another time.

When I was involved with network marketing I remember that when I joined Herbalife they told me: Talk to some people and you'll make some money, talk to lots of people and you'll make lots of money. I chose to make lots of money!

Dress things up however you want but making money is in relationship to the number of people you communicate with. With blogging these people are your traffic or hits.

The first two truths about making money blogging are therefore.

(1) You need useful or entertaining content and
(2) You need as much traffic as you can get.

Sorry if that sounds all too basic or simple but life is simple, we tend to over complicate everything.

I'll cover some other aspects of making money with free blogs over the next week - as I see it.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Help For Those In A Bad Credit Situation

The reality is that a lot of people get known as bad credit consumers. There can be all sorts of reasons as to why this happens but numbers are on the rise within the U.S.

So what do you do if you find yourself in such a situation and want further credit or maybe want to repair your credit history? A website BadCreditOffers may be able to help. They specialising helping those with less than perfect credit ratings.

For example, if you are after a Credit Card or perhaps an Auto Loan you can compare various offers from major providers to see which fits best with your own individual needs.

The same applies for Home Loans, Personal Loans and even where to get Credit Counseling.

BadCreditOffers say they have 'years of experience in the credit industry'. They may, therefore, be just the people to help, if you find yourself in a bad credit situation.

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Money From YouGov

Just back from my short break. We stayed in a country lodge, which was perfect, and even the sun shone for us.

Anyway, a quick post before the football (soccer) and rugby start. England are playing Estonia at football, so that shouldn't be a problem, and then later on it's the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup against France - which could go either way, though fingers crossed!

I received a cheque for £50 (about $100) from YouGov while I was away, which confirms what I have kept saying: they are a genuine survey company.

YouGov carry out regular polls for UK national newspapers (Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times) as well as for Sky television news - plus for a host of other organisations as well.

Unfortunately they only operate in the UK, USA and the Middle East at the present time. Payments are made for completing surveys and polls and also for introducing new panel members. If you are into this sort of thing give them a try. YouGov won't make you rich, but every little extra helps.

Haven't had time to catch up on my stats to see what happened while I was away. Hopefully will be able to do this tomorrow - following two England wins!

Good luck,
Mike.

Click here to register with YouGov

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Is It Possible To Make Money From Free Blogs?

Well my first year at blogging is now over. It's been an interesting journey and I guess I've answered my own question, with which I started my very first post - well at least partly.

This was my first post:

"Is it possible to make money from free blogs? This is the question that I want to answer.

My mission, therefore, is to try and make money, starting with this blog.

At the moment I have no idea as to what direction to follow but I hope to learn fast. I also hope that other bloggers will give me some ideas and help along the way. I don't want to get flooded with spam and chain mail things, of course, but I'll be grateful for any genuine assistance.

I intend to let readers know how I get on. I'll give exact details of what I do and how it turns out. If I'm successful, even in a small way, then others will be able to copy what I do. If I make mistakes they can learn from these as well.

I'll be updating regularly."

So the answer to my question is: Yes, you can make money with free blogs - and without any capital outlay.

When I started I genuinely had no idea as to the direction I would take and would never have guessed that I would wander into the world of celebrity blogs. As I said, it's been interesting.

My first Money Making Report included the following:

"I've realised that getting visitors to a blog takes a while. In my first week my counter is showing 100 visitors from 13 countries, the largest percentage being from the USA and UK. I'm satisfied with this. My income has been 84cents. "

I would never have dreamed back then that I would ever get over 46,000 visitors in a week to a blog as I did last week. It illustrates though, the possibilities of blogs and the potential of the Internet.

I'm not sure what the future holds for me and blogging. I've yet to decide.

I would like to say thank you to everyone who has been with me for at least part of my blogging education. There are some great bloggers about. I won't mention any names in case I forget anyone.

I'll now be away for about eight or nine days as my wife and I are having a short break. It's been an emotional year for us, especially for my wife, because of what happened earlier this year.

So, will catch up with everyone in about nine days time.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Press Releases = Free Publicity

When I was publishing my magazines I often used Press Releases to promote anything new that I was doing. It got me free publicity because I found that lots of smaller magazines were desperate for articles and information with which to fill their pages.

I also published Press Releases myself if I thought they were relevant to the subject matter of my publications.

I got to thinking why was it that I never used Press Releases for my blogs.

Looking around I found a couple of places on the Internet that offer a free distribution service for Press Releases. No doubt there are many more.

The first is PR Leap. In their own words:

With PR Leap you can:

• Connect with new readers (consumers, bloggers, journalists, knowledge workers and more) who would otherwise not find out about your important news announcement.


• Gain authority and credibility within your space.


• Increase your readership and traffic through attribution and links back to your site.


• Track the indexing of your news release by individual search engines and see how many times it has been viewed.

The other is PR Web. They say benefits include:

• Boost your Web site traffic and SEO


• Get your news on top sites like Google News & Yahoo! News


• Add multimedia to your release


• Send your news to top journalists


• Track your results

They also give an example of a Press Release here.

An example of a website's PR is the one by Wilkipedia on it's first anniversary in 2002.

Press Releases: Worth thinking about if you want free publicity (i.e. advertising).

Good luck,
Mike.

Further Reading:
How do I Write A Press Release?

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CouponChief Saves You Money

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, saving money is nearly as good as making money. There is after all only two ways to be better off. Either:

(1) Increase your income or
(2) Reduce your outgoings.

With an expensive period looming on the horizon i.e. Halloween, Thanksgiving and, dare I mention it, Christmas it's good to find ways to reduce the possible expenditure.

This is where a website such as couponchief.com may just be able to help. As their name suggests they provide coupons and discounts for dozens and dozens of different merchants and stores.

Let's take a couple of examples. There are Amazon coupons for savings on such things as watches, beauty products and so on. Or how about CoffeeForLess.com coupons whereby you can save on all of their products.

I took the two examples at random but there is a great diversity of web merchants offering discounts and deals, too many for me to count.

I came across 46 places offering deals where the company began with 'A'. I won't list them all but they include: A&E Televisions, adidas America, Alaska Air, AllThingsTrendy, American Express, Apple iTunes, Armani Exchange, Avon and so on. And I haven't even looked at the rest of the alphabet!

The message is: Whatever you are looking for it's worth checking out couponchief.com first to see what savings you can make.

Try And Make Money from Day One

Ed of the excellent The Pisstakers website raised an interesting subject about at what stage a blog should be monetized.

Should you start trying to make money from day 1 or wait until the blog or website is established with a regular readership?

Ed took the view that it's important to build traffic first and this is generally the view that the 'experts' take. But, as yc of Internet Marketing Mind has mentioned, "If you get only 10 visitors a day and only 1 of them generates revenue of some sort, that is still revenue." And that is very true. I have always been of the opinion that: Any profit is good profit.

If I was asked for an opinion it would be that you might as well monetize as soon as the blog is set up as long as ...

(1) You don't over do things and plaster the blog full of flashing banners so that it detracts from what you are writing - the content is the important bit of the blog. I can't see that putting something like, say, AdSense on your blog is going to do any harm.

To me having a few ads gives a little substance to the blog. It doesn't appear so empty and uninviting when the visitors arrive.

(2) And, of course you mustn't get disappointed when you don't get many clicks. They will come as the traffic increases - providing you do the proper things.

When I got my first few cents shown on AdSense you would have thought I'd have made a million. It was a great feeling and when I hit a full dollar sheer ecstasy! Okay, perhaps a bit exaggerated but even a few cents show that you can make money and encourages you to keep going.

What happens if you take the other viewpoint and build your traffic first and then nobody clicks on your banners, or whatever you are promoting? Disappointment? A feeling that it's all been a waste of time?

Monetize straight away, be realistic with your expectations and remember that thing about oaks and acorns ... or perhaps you disagree. Whatever ...

Good luck,
Mike.

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Thanks!

As it's a new month my thanks to everyone who has referred visitors to this blog, and also to my celebrity blog, during September. The Top Five Referrers from other blogs were:

1. Web-Dosh
2. Active Duty Military Money and Matters
3. Make Money Fa$t
4. Money Money Money
5. Blog About Your Blog
Other types of referrers ranged from 45n5 and Mister Linker to Klik Us with the majority arriving from the various search engines.

For Celebrity Insider - Photos & News the search engine's did me proud last month:

1. Google 43157 referrals
2. Microsoft Live 2068
3. Technorati 1742
4. Google Images 716
5. Yahoo 641
It's interesting that Google Images sent over 700 visitors - this is an area of possible referrals that is often overlooked.

I also must mention Zimbio who referred 3862 visitors. As I've previously said I don't think Zimbio will work well for all types of blogs but it's done well with my celebrity interests - though very little for this blog.

Thanks to everyone who has visited the blog, subscribed, left comments, referred others and so on. It's appreciated very much.

Good luck,
Mike.

The video below is by success coach, Robin Sharma and is called No More Excuses. Robin talks about APR - no, not annual percentage rate but Absolute Personal Responsibility.

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