Research Your Way To Riches

When I was thinking about starting my very first blog I read what a lot of the 'experts' had to say on the matter. They all seemed to agree that bloggers should decide on a specific niche.

"Write about what you are interested in and know about - about - about," they echoed.

So that's why I started Mike's Money Making Mission - because I had previously published a money making magazine for ten years. I followed their advice in other words.

But, you know, those experts aren't really right in what they preach, and most churn out the same old party line.

As an extreme example supposing your main interest is: The combined wit and wisdom of Tony Blair and George Bush. Okay, it's unlikely, but lets pretend.

So you set up your blog about the handsome duo but there would problems in two ways.

(1) Their combined wit and wisdom could be written on a single page - alright half a page.

(2) How many people would actually want to read this? It's a bit of a limited market.

Yes, you've followed the experts advice but it's not going to work out too good because:

(a) There isn't sufficient subject matter to write 300+ posts a year and
(b) There aren't enough people interested in the subject.

This means, no matter how hard you try, it's doubtful if you will succeed - and there's even less chance of making any decent money.

So much for experts!

When thinking about a niche what we should do - if we want a decent readership and/or make money - is to choose something that a lot of people want to read about. There's no reason why this has to be something that interests you or is something that you know about.

I didn't realise this at first. It was only when I started to seriously think about what many people really wanted to read that I started to make worthwhile money.

Nope, you don't make a lot of money with money making blogs!

I started to make decent money once I set up my celebrity blogs - giving people what they want to see and read.

I didn't have a clue about celebrities when I started - honest! I obviously knew a few film star and music names but that was it. I never read all of the gossip about who's doing what and to whom and so on.

I've learned a lot since about how the celeb media and tabloids work - it's all a big game - and it's this that has made me money. Because it's what a lot of people want to read about - sorry, if I'm sounding like a stuck parrot!

I'm not for one minute suggesting that you should start up a celebrity blog. All I'm saying is that, if you are looking for a niche, pick one that interests a lot of people - and not necessarily something that you are personally interested in.

There's a mountain of information out there, on almost any subject, so you can research your way to riches.

Good luck,
Mike.

Celebrity Insider - Photos & News: Gossip, news and photos about worldwide celebs.

How Big Are Your Posts?

So how long should a blog post be?

I used to ponder over this when I started blogging. I figured blogging people were busy people and that few of them had time to wade through masses of text.

I think a lot of us are skimmers when it comes to blog posts. By this I mean that we quickly look through what is written to see if it's worth the effort of reading it all. Sometimes perhaps we just pick out any obvious highlights or points of interest.

My own conclusion is that for an average blog post 300 to 600 words is about the right balance.

There are always exceptions, of course. You might have something special to write, such as a 'how-to' article, and this might well need something longer.

Conversely if the message can be said in fewer words why pad it out.

I know some bloggers who prefer to write one or two lengthy tomes each week instead of smaller ones daily.

It all boils down to whether you think you can keep the reader interested in the subject you are writing about.

One way in doing this is to keep paragraphs short. I always glaze over when I see a post with few, or even without, paragraphs.

The use of images also helps. Anything to break up something that may otherwise look boring.

It's all about giving something for the reader to think about. So ... how many words do you think a blog post should have?

Good luck,
Mike.

Proof Of What A Big Joke Wealth Toolbox Is

Wealth Toolbox! I get more emails about this than anything else at the moment - plus my posts on this so called program still get a lot of reads.

I've said it several times before but - do not waste your time getting involved with this. You won't make any money.

First they said they would give everyone $50 and this would be invested on the members' behalf. My amount soon shot up to $350+. Unfortunately some bloggers took this to be serious and I saw it included on money they had made in a month.

I'm sure that they now realise this was a load of old tosh.

Wealth Toolbox have changed the system and guess what? It was necessary to re-join. Okay, fair enough but most people simply couldn't re-join. Every name they (and I) chose was deemed to have been used already. I even tried names such as 'zjglqwrx' but miraculously someone had already beaten me to it!

Of course what this meant was that my $350+ was lost. Now isn't that a surprise! I did previously warn that there wasn't a cat's chance in hell in that any money would be paid out.

I could still, however, join the Wealth Toolbox new system by simply using a name and a password. So I did out of interest.

My 'account' was credited with $5 but within minutes shot upwards to $8 and then more. Wow! This guy sure knows how to make money in his dreams!

But, oh dear! I went to see how my money was progressing today and guess what? The system has been changed again already and that money has also been lost.

Determined as ever I tried to join the new third version.

I used an obscure email address and name but couldn't gain admittance. I had to check my email for an acceptance code to click on. I did this but the code they provided was invalid!

It will be interesting to see what future emails I get to this email address.

My advice again: don't touch Wealth Toolbox with a bargepole, or anything else. Even giving an email address may not be to your advantage.

Move on to something honest that will make some real money but, before you do, here's proof of what a big joke Wealth Toolbox really is.

The founder is/was supposedly a guy called Jason Steele.

In the present guff on the Wealth Toolbox website there are 7 supposed reasons as to why you should join Wealth Toolbox.

Number 5 states: Last year I earned over $100,000 on the Internet and quit my day job. This I presume is Jason Steele talking.

So he made $100,000. If it were true, and done honestly, not too bad but ...

In the first incarnation of Wealth Toolbox he was saying how he 'made $15,572 ... in less than 30 minutes.' This was part of his Forex Power Strategy Course that members could join for $495 - you can see the details here. Unfortunately the video, that goes with the info. has been removed - surprise, surprise!

So here's a man that, with the original Wealth Toolbox, was giving everyone hundreds of dollars, which I worked out would have run into millions in total - if he'd have had to pay out. And don't forget that he can also make $15,000+ in minutes and can tell others how to do this (at a price) but ...

... he only makes $100,000 a year!

It's all fantasy land.

Sorry, I went on a bit longer than I intended!

Here's some of the other stuff I've written about Wealth Toolbox:

Feb 25 2007: Money Making Test Warning About Wealth Toolbox
Apr 19 2007: Six Questions To Ask About Wealth Toolbox

Good luck,
Mike.

P.S. Further to my last post RealRank Is RealUseless Real Rank's lead developer has left a comment. Perhaps this may be of interest.

RealRank is RealUseless

RealRank had a RealProblem which left me RealMad.

On Tuesday I couldn't get into my celebrity blog and nor, it appears, could anyone else. I obviously wasn't happy with this, especially when I saw that my hits count was nearly 2000 down on what was expected.

I had no idea what was wrong, I'm no web designer.

To cut a long story short I went back to basics with my blog's template and removed everything I had added myself - photos, ads, tweeks, widgets and so on. The blog would then load okay.

Gradually, checking all the time, I added what I had taken off. The blog kept on loading until I entered the RealRank code. I established that: if the code was on the template the blog could not be seen by visitors, if it was deleted everything was okay.

Problem sort of solved - though it had taken me about two hours. I simply left off the RealRank code.

Next day, Wednesday, I emailed RealRank for an explanation. This was the reply I got:

"Hi Mike,
Thanks for reaching out to us. Our Dev team became aware of this issue last night in trying to reconfigure the code to report views faster.

Dev is currently working on a fix for this issue. Here are links to our Izea Blog and the boards which contain more information about this issue.

All the Best,
Carri"

Okay, but ...

(1) I wasn't 'reaching out' (what a stupid expression this is) I was frankly pi**ed off.

(2) I didn't see the words 'sorry' or 'apology' anywhere. After all, because of them I had the lowest days traffic figures and AdSense clicks etc of the year.

(3) If it was known this was happening on blogs why weren't we emailed with the info. I shouldn't have thought many people would have read the 'board' entry, which was dated Wednesday the day I, and others, had the problem. Well it's obvious why they wouldn't have done this - hush it up, don't rock the boat.

As for their 'boards' the latest relevant post includes the following:

"Basically the ITK code needs to be placed in the body of the web page on your site for the bug to not rear it's head. We think that's unacceptible and are working out our own solution to Microsoft's problems. In the meantime we're rolling back the ITK code to the earlier version so that the crashes IE users are experiencing go away."

So there you go.

PageRank stats haven't been accurate either, as I mentioned on an update on January 21st.

I haven't re-entered, or even tried, to enter the RealRank code - even if it has been 'rolled back' as they say.

What I'd really like is assurances that:

(a) RealRank stats are accurate.
(b) The code won't stop visitors arriving at my blog.

Otherwise RealRank is RealUseless.

Such is the blogging life - you've got to smile!

Good luck,
Mike.

Celebrity Insider - Photos & News: Photos, news, gossip snippits on celebs.

Money Making Blog Space

A few Pancake Day updates and thoughts - but about money making and not pancakes!

WidgetBucks.
Pleased to confirm that I have now had a payment from WidgetBucks. Only $64.31, but I also managed over the $50 payout figure for January so there should be another payment due this time next month. It's tough going though.

I've had lots of page impressions but the CPM rate is pretty grim. Example: 17725 page impressions, amount earned 27c. That's about 1.5 cents per 1000 - as I said, grim!

WidgetBucks say, about us non US and Canada residents, that we can now specify categories of ads. But will this improve CPM rate? To quote WidgetBucks:

"Because we just rolled out this change, it's difficult to estimate the exact increase in CPM but we will provide some trend insight on this over the next couple of weeks."

I'm not convinced as to the viability of WidgetBucks as a money maker for non USA or Canadian residents. I'll stick with it for a few more weeks.

Amazon.com
I made a big thing in my previous post about how I had switched to Amazon.com as opposed to Amazon.uk.

Amazingly, since then, I have had two orders - but for Amazon.uk! Not a sausage from Amazon.com.

Again I'm not convinced about Amazon as a money maker. The commission rate is low and the ratio of orders per click also seems low. Not exactly a good combination.

I'm going to have a good go with this affiliate program for this month and then decide if I should dedicate space (and time) to something more profitable.

General thoughts
Blog space dedicated to ads and products is our shop window, our retail space if you like, and it has to prove effective. It's so easy to continue with the same old format but now and again it's necessary to stand back and ask, "Is my retail space being used to maximum efficiency?"

If not then we have to change.

Though Amazon and WidgetBucks aren't too hot for me I fortunately do have some good revenue providers. What I keep thinking though is, "What if I could get all of my space working to the same high level?"

The answer to that, of course, is easy: I'd make a lot more money - and that's the name of the game.

Good Luck,
Mike.

Flying Saucer Review: Worldwide reports on UFOs.

A Bad Taste Amazon Moment

I've been reviewing some of the ways I make money with blogs. I've been doing the stats and seeing which programs are worthwhile and which ones should be ditched.

One I have been considering dropping is Amazon. I've only made about £18 ($36) in total and payout isn't until the earnings are more than £50 ($100). Then it struck me what I'm still doing wrong.

"Doh!"

I'm with Amazon.uk but only 13% of my traffic comes from the UK, whereas 64% arrives from North America. The obvious solution is, therefore, to join Amazon.com as well. So that's what I have just done.

I'll keep Amazon.uk for UK orientated blogs and for the rest I'll have a go with Amazon.com. It all works pretty much the same from what I can see.

In theory this should make a difference. I made only £8.47 ($16.94) in January from Amazon and this mostly arrived via my Celebrity Insider blog.

As the celeb blog had about 150,000 unique visitors during the month and 13% (from UK) made me $16.94 then 64% (from USA) should make me about $83 if my mathematics is right - and providing the click rate remains the same. Okay it's still not exactly a good return compared with, for example, AdSense and Voxant but it is still an improvement. I've also been trying to think up ways to increase the clicks.

And that's what I've been doing on this wet, dull afternoon. I've been having a fresh look at Amazon. They sell some strange stuff and a lot of products I wasn't aware of. I tend to think books, DVDs, CDs but there's much more.

Here's a few examples from Amazon.com - some are of poor taste!

1. Uranium Ore. Never know when it might come in handy.

2. UFO Detector. They are out there - make contact.

3. Inflatable Wife. If you've got the puff.

4. Spiderman Pet Costume. Fancy dress for pets.

5. Four Bottles of Liquid Ass Fart Spray. I said some were of poor taste!

6. Silk Micro G-String Thong Rings Panty. Live in hope.

7. Artificial Insemination Kit. The title says it all.

8. Wedding Chapel - 10 x 18 With Wood Roof. Expensive but it's a quality item for when you want to get hitched.

9. Heinz Spotted Dick Pudding, 10-Ounce Cans (Pack of 6). Food of the Gods.

10. The Celebrity Black Book 2008: Over 55,000 Accurate Celebrity Addresses . Get in touch with those celebs.

And much more besides.

I'll let you know if Amazon.com proves more successful.

Good luck,
Mike.
And for UK readers:

January Money Making

That's the first month of the year ticked off.

I think January went pretty well. As I said last month I'm not going to say how much I have earned any more, for various reasons, but these are a few of the programs that sent me money:

Google AdSense
Some people knock AdSense but I find it a good, reliable earner. Plus the money is paid direct to my bank account, on time, every month. Yes, there are alternatives but why rock the boat when something works. The reality though, with any of these sort of programs, is that you need a decent amount of traffic to receive a worthwhile amount.

FriendFinder Group
This isn't for everyone but I get checks every month from them. They are a big, reliable affiliate program with dozens of websites (Christian and Friendship to Adult and Bondage!) to promote.

Voxant Newsroom
I'm doing well with Voxant because of my good celebrity blog traffic. They pay $4* per 1000 on news videos that run automatically. Yes, these can be annoying but on one blog alone I had around 150,000 visitors in January, so the sums add up nicely.

Sexy Ads
Another one that's not for everyone but I find they are very efficient and have good promotional material - providing you have the right sort of blog/visitors. Checks arrive on time.

PayPal
This is the method I use for any direct advertising or reviews. I then withdraw the money monthly which makes the bookkeeping easy for tax - and all that other horrible stuff!

Convergence Inc
For over 18's only. It's adult products but I can get away with advertising this on some of my celebrity blogs. Convergence will set up anyone with a free website. It's big percentage commission and they pay out when they say they will.

So that's the money bit. As far as vistors go it's been an excellent January. I slightly missed out on the target I set myself for Celebrity Insider but managed 148,753 unique vistors for the month according to extreme tracking but over 160,000 if I look at Icerocket stats.

Regarding Mike's Money Making Mission the following were the Top 5 Referrering Blogs. Other websites, search engines etc may have sent more traffic but I appreciate the help given by other blogs. My thanks to the following plus all blogs that have sent me referrals - see my MMMM Links Page.

Top Blog Referrers
1.
Make Money Fa$t
2.
Web-Dosh
3.
My quest to make money on the Internet
4.
Money Money Money
5.
Active Duty Military Money and Matters
That's it for now. It's been a hard day for my wife and I because of what happened this time last year.

Good luck,
Mike.

* Update: I have just seen that the rate per 1000 has been reduced with Voxant to $3 from today (Feb 1 2008)