Online Money Making !

Blog launch!

2009-02-10T11:14:00.002Z

I wrote in a previous post that I had figured out one of my "online flaws" was that I would sell a blog pretty much as soon as it had started making decent money. I didn't know if my blogs could keep earning consistently for months. Selling them contantly put me back at square one. I made a goal to not sell any blogs until Easter while constantly growing them and building more.

That strategy has been going very well. My adsense earnings have been steadily increasing ever since my last sale and I'm earning enough that hopefully I won't need to sell a blog at easter anyway.

The blog I want to tell you about is clothing deals online. On that blog I track down the deals and discounts that Amazon has on so many of its items and I publish my findings. Its purpose for the user is to save them money when they shop. It covers clothing in a very in-depth way with entire sections devoted to womens clothing online and other types of clothes. I'm still working on the appearance of the site (the header graphic needs changing), but I have high hopes for it!

Growing the Right Part of your Online Money Making Business

2009-01-17T10:53:00.005Z

My internet business involves blogs, a fair number of them. Sometimes I can wake up in the morning, check all my stats/earnings etc and think "what should I work on today, what is top priority?" Answering that question is easier said than done especially when you know that if you left everything alone for that day nothing negative (or positive) would happen. Sometimes it seems like everything I do is medium-long term, which means looking into the future is important.

I recently wrote about money making business opportunities that have developed simply by the passing of time. When the blogs that are working well stop growing so fast (but remain stable), its time to pick things up from the bottom and build those blogs up. Now that I've been 'picking up' my old blogs for a while some are growing faster than others, so should I ditch working on the ones that are not growing as fast and just work on the high-growth blogs (while maintaining the high-earning, low growth blogs). For now, the answer is yes. I'm ultimately diversifying while at the same time filtering out the less effective techniques.

It's the 80/20 rule coming in useful again. The 80/20 rule is the idea that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts. Therefore if you can work out which 20% of your efforts are the most productive you can shift gear and only work on those things.

MoneyMaking Business Opportunities

2009-01-14T10:28:00.005Z

Making the most of moneymaking business opportunities online can be difficult. If you are anything like me you swing from having no moneymaking ideas to too many ideas all at once! Should you buy new domains to start new blogs on, buy domains that are aged already or something completely different?

An alternative that I have been finding increasingly attractive recently is reviving old blogs of mine that are already trusted by Google.

My Current MoneyMaking Strategy

Over the 18 months I've been blogging I've built up quite a few domains. I had a phase just over 6 months ago where I did a load of keyword research and bought some domains. I wasn't invested in many things online at the time so I needed to get back in the game. I installed Wordpress on these new blogs and wrote the first post just so Google would index my site with a little content. Often a problem with blogging on a new domain is Google doesn't trust it and you have to work extra hard to not be 'sandboxed' or at least to avoid very low SERPs rankings.

6 months has now passed and my little blogs are all trusted enough by Google to get decent rankings without having to post every single day and build links all night. All that's changed about them is time has passed! I've been steadily adding content to them in the last few weeks and they have been growing very nicely.

I suddenly realized... I have left this blog to the dogs! It's full of decent content, trusted by the search engines, why on earth was I not updating it? On top of that I know more about how to earn money online with a blog now than when I used to write here daily, so I decided (at the very least) to add some more posts outlining what I've been up to.

If your a new reader to this blog or a veteran from 'the old days', do leave a comment letting me know how your business making money online is going for you.

Business Making Money Online

2009-01-12T10:32:00.011Z

I've been wanting to outline a key lesson I've learned over the last 18 months about running a business making money online. It is about having a long-term strategy that will stand the test of time, like this ruined castle in Ogrodzieniec.

One problem I've encountered that is disguised as a mini-success is that I create a blog and build them up so that they earn a small amount only for me to sell them. Some would think (including me at the time) that this was a good sign. I was creating something that made money by itself pretty much for free in terms of financial investment and then selling it to earn a high enough amount for me to get by.

The problem I've come to realize is that is a short term strategy. If I am to build up passive earnings from adsense so that eventually I am free from financial shackles, I need to hold onto my blogs rather than selling them off. Each time I sell them my recurring earnings go back to virtually square one. Sure, I may have an extra $1000 in the bank, but that runs out and then I have to sell my latest creation.

One way to get around this to turn that into a positive. I am good at selling blogs, so perhaps I should just get quicker at building them up and continue selling them. I'm confident that business strategy would work in terms of making money, but it doesn't scale up to give me enough freedom with my time.

That is why I am setting a goal until Easter, to not sell any blogs in my old 'quick boost' approach. I will endure my bank balance getting a bit low with the aims of building a long-term business making money online. A few months of constant build up will almost certainly not be long enough to reach my overall earning goals, but it is a big step in the right direction for my business making money online.

Quick Last Minute Deals Expands!

2008-05-21T08:28:00.000Z

Quick Last Minute Deals is rapidly expanding! A new section has been set up just for cars and I have bloggers waiting to start blogging there. The new section is called used cars and trucks.

I will be creating more subsections shortly so stay tuned!

Introducing QuickLastMinuteDeals.com And a blogging job!

2008-04-28T15:13:00.001Z

I have just launched a blog for finding Quick Last Minute Deals for various items you may be searching for. I use eBay to do this and I use another site to give me a constant stream of ideas for what last minute deals to write about.

I've been launching lots of blogs lately... time to stop making new ones and start improving the old ones!

The Blogging Job

Quick Last Minute Deals is the type of blog where the more posts that are churned out the better.

I need bloggers who can write posts for quicklastminutedeals.com. I will tell you everything you need to know so that each post will only take about 5 minutes. You will be able to rotate your AdSense codes with mine to earn a cut of the earnings, so the more you post the more you earn!

If you want to do this email me at mattjones(at)bloggingfingers(dot)com.

Blog Plug For Rave Clothing Store

2008-04-15T21:12:00.000Z

I've launched a new blog which contains a Rave Clothing Store, which sells items such as rave clothing for girls. We also have a section for rave lights and rave clothing for juniors.

This new site of mine makes use of the new ebay partner program and uses the PHPbay lite Wordpress plugin. I plan to make lots of small niche sites, like this one with a blog on the homepage and sidebar links to the store pages.

I'll update on how it goes!

Has anyone else launched any new blogs recently?

Tuesday Blog Plugs

2008-03-25T13:56:00.000Z

I often write blog plugs over at Blogging Fingers and they have gone down well there so I have decided to introduce the writing of blog plugs here as well.

A blog plug is simply a favorable mention in a blog post. It doesn't have to be part of a list of plugs, but it can be. Bloggers commonly write blog plugs (although they may call them something else) as a way of sharing their favorite links with readers, as well as earning social 'brownie points' with the sites that they link to.

Plugs
For fanatical devotion and talented programming I strongly recommend using Logicsmiths Web Design and Application Development Services

I've also guest posted at Shylock Blogging.com, so be sure to check out the post and give it a sphinn + stumble.

Download The Blog Monetization Strategies E-book And Win $300!

2008-02-28T17:20:00.000Z

With great excitement I give you the Blog Monetization Strategies e-book. It is 16 pages long and 100% free! Monetization is my favourite blogging topic, which is why I chose to write an e-book and give it away for free! Every word of its content is brand new. Nothing is copied from old blog posts. This e-book contains my best material.

Enter your email address below to have the e-book sent to you.

I am launching the e-book with a $300 contest on Blogging Fingers. Check out the contest here

The e-book is kindly sponsored by FruitFulTime Task Manager to do list software, which you could win just by downloading the free Blog Monetization Strategies e-book!

Google Lowers Rankings For A Small Blog Of Mine

2008-01-28T22:03:00.000Z

A small niche blog of mine about cheap airsoft guns called Cheap-Ass Airsoft Guns has had its rankings lowered by Google!

The site used to earn a couple of dollars each day from Google Adsense, so it wasn't a major earner, but it was a nice supplemental income given I very rarely updated it. I do not know why the rankings has been lowered! It was making money for a few weeks in a row, then suddenly the rank is lost for all its referring kewords.

The lesson is don't rely on Google for all the traffic!

P.S.
My keyword experiment for ranking for Facebok was a success! Or at least it was temporarily!

Wilipedia - Another Misspelling

2007-11-23T13:35:00.000Z

Remember earlier today I posted about Facebok? Well I am going to continue this crazy experiment by seeing if it will work for another misspelling! wilipedia!

I am awaiting the results to see if I can rank number 1 for both Facebok and Wilipedia!

Why don't you try something similar (but with different misspellings) and let me know the results! I'll update you about Wilipedia.

Google Search Misspellings: FaceBok

2007-11-23T13:25:00.000Z

If you are reading this there is a good chance you came via the misspelling in a Google search “Facebok”!

It is a fairly well known fact among bloggers and domainers that money can be made from misspellings. I did a little research and I discovered there are several thousand searches for "Facebok" each month! This post is an experiment to see how fast this post can rise to the top of Google for the term "Facebok" instead of Facebook (of course!).

This going to be fun! Has anyone ever done something similar?

2 Hours Of Blogging In 2 Minutes

2007-08-31T22:01:00.000Z

Here is a vid I made of me blogging for 2 hours speeded up into 2 minutes. You can catch more Blogging Ideas over at my blog Blogging Fingers

Online Money Making With Blogging Fingers

2007-07-24T14:23:00.000Z

As many of you know my new blog over at Blogging Fingers is about blogging ideas, tips creativity and money making strategies for blogs.

It has advice about building traffic, online money making and lots of unique ideas. I highly recommend you head over there now and subscribe to the RSS feed (What is RSS?).

I recently sold a blog of mine for $1000. On Blogging Fingers I have written a 2 part series on How to sell a blog. The blog I sold was only 3 months old, so you can do the same thing!

If you are looking to start a blog for online money making then be sure to check out my page about web hosting packages which will tell you everything you need to know to get started with a blog with a domain name of your choice (unlike this blog).

My New Blog - Visit it Now!

2007-07-09T13:13:00.000Z

My New blog is Blogging Fingers. I hope you like it, and don't forget to subscribe to it's RSS Feed!

Clinke Bidding Directory Released!

2007-05-22T11:31:00.000Z

Daryl from Earn Money Blogging recently announced the launch of his new bidding directory which he has called Clinke (as in 'putting Link in cost effectiveness'). Clinke's development is recorded on the directory blog. Clinke allows you to buy and sell backlinks, which is important for SEO and improves Google Page Rank. Each backlink counts as a 'vote of confidence' for your site in the all-seeing eyes of the search engines and so they are fundamentally important.

To get his new site of to a flying start Daryl launched a blog post contest where everybody is a winner! The best post will (which he will judge) will receive $20. This seems like a pretty small first prize, but there are 5 prizes and everyone who takes part wins the 3rd,4th and 5th ones! Why not enter the contest and be guaranteed a prize!

UPDATE: Since writing this I have been added to the Clinke bidding directory and experienced first hand the special bonus which Daryl mentions on his post. If I told you what it is I would have to spam you to death (how else can you kill someone via a blog?), but rest assured it's worth entering to find out!

Whats up with Feedburner?!

2007-05-17T10:00:00.000Z

I just checked my Feedburner subscription and I was greeted with the horrific sight you see above. Every site has been reduced to 0! I'm guessing there is some sort of malfunction and hopefully it will all return to normal!

Has anyone else's Feedburner RSS count suddenly been reduced to 0?

UPDATE:
It's all fixed now and back to normal. The world is safe for another day...

Online Money Making

2007-05-13T19:10:00.001Z

Online money making has become a major business and a way of life, or at least an ambition for many many people. A Google search for "Online money making" reveals over 90 Million results, 722 thousand of which are blogs. I think of this massive increase in bloggers blogging about online money making as a booming industry, not unlike the industrial revolution, or the massive emigration to America, to explore the new world.

It's an exiting time to be alive and blogging, with everyone looking to get a knee up from the wealthy online money making bloggers who got in early and have grown powerful.

The great thing about online money making bloggers is that they are both competition to each other, while at the same time provide traffic to each other and sustain each other while teaching you (and me) How to Market Your Blog. We all visit each other’s blogs, being traffic in ourselves, as well as exchanging links and helping each other.

The other common practise is linking to other blog posts we like. This creates friendly competition that is very rewarding and fair for those involved. Good content simply means more links from other bloggers, which increases traffic directly as well as improves search engine rankings.

The other great thing about online money making is that it encourages creativity. This is important, not only in writing creative blog posts, but in coming up with entrepreneurial ideas. Anything is possible; people are becoming millionaires by online money making all the time. Just imagine what the blogosphere will be like in 10 years, will it still exist?

PayPerPost Love

2007-05-10T17:51:00.000Z

Unles you have been living up a tree for the last several months you will know that PayPerPost is a make money blogging site which sponsors blog posts. In other words they are a middleman. This blog was accepted by PayPerPost about a month or so ago when I crossed the '3 month old' boundary'. Since then I have completed just two sponsored posts from PayPerpost; mostly because until the recent Google Page Rank update many of the opportunities were unavailable to me.

Those two posts have made me a humble $14, of which $6.50 was actually paid into my PayPal account this morning. That money (I know it's not much!) will go into my general 'Gap year fund' which comprises of personal savings and other money I have made online.

If anything, my experience from being with PayPerPost has reinforced the phrase 'don't put all your eggs in one basket'. This phrase has become a bit of a cliché in blogging, but that is for a very good reason; it is 100% true.

SEO Class

2007-05-10T14:13:00.002Z

SEO Class provides SEO Training by what are apparently marketing specialists. Of course there is no qualification that defines who is a 'marketing specialist', but every SEO Class presenter has an online presence at either, WebmasterWorld Forum, Threadwatch, Search Engine Land or SERoundtable.

At the class you will learn about:

1. Content creation.
2. Organic and Paid Link Building and Management
3. Research Techniques
4. Social Marketing
5. Paid Marketing Campaigns
6. Technical Setup
7 SEO Tools (free and paid ones).

To me it looks like SEO Class will teach you a lot about SEO. However, whether most of that knowledge can be found online for free is another matter. I suspect a lot of it can be found, but the SEO learning curve (much like the blogging one) is long. The advantage of SEO class is that you can learn it all in one go.

The cost is a whopping $2999 (did I forget to mention that?). This is way over the budget for most bloggers in the online money making niche. In addition, one of the major plusses of the SEO class would be that you can get 1 on 1 help from the experts, however, without the experience of trying out their techniques it would be hard to make the most of this offer.

There are no seats currently available for the May 2007 (they must be making the sales somewhere!). SEO Class is best for young online businesses, where the webmaster has only a moderate or little amount of SEO knowledge.

Blog About Your Blog... and get a free fridge!

2007-05-05T08:46:00.000Z

What more could you want in life? The Blog About Your Blog Feed Contest is well underway. All you have to do is subscribe to their feed, leave a comment and when they reach 200 subscribers they will give away a 'state of the art' mini fridge. If there’s one thing that the ladies go for, it’s a man with a mini fridge.

As I write this they have 105 subscribers so they are over half way there! Note that only US residents can be sent the fridge, so no fridge for me I’m afraid (story of my life... :p).

I may usually be one to 'game the system' but with Feeds my views are a little different. I always think of feeds as a very accurate measure of the quality of a blog’s content, because unlike e.g. the Technorati favourites, subscribing to a feed has consequences and means getting posts sent to you (so people don't just subscribe on a whim). However, Blog About Your Blog does have quality content, which 'lessens the blow' and there seems to be no reason why people can't unsubscribe from the contest once the fridge has been awarded.

But Wait, What is 'Blog About Your Blog'

"We are a community blog where we feature quality bloggers with quality blogs. We ask bloggers to share their articles with us, providing links to their own blog, as well as traffic and readers."

I heard about Blog About Your Blog a while ago, but for a reason I am unsure of I never actually visited them. They have a simple and effective layout (which apparently is new) and a distinct lack of Ads which makes a refreshing change.

It was good to see a few familiar faces posting there. I would try to become an author there myself if I had the time but as you know I am looking for guest bloggers myself.

- This is a sponsored Post - (not sponsored to be positive!) -

Online Money Making - SERPS Madness!

2007-05-01T19:20:00.001Z

I have woefully mentioned a number of times before (at least I think I wrote it out loud... ) that when I started this blog 4 months ago I had no SEO strategy. However, it may have been a blessing from Google, or just shear luck but yesterday I found myself on page 6 for the term 'online money making. OK, so Page 6 isn't great, but it's defiantly something to work with, and given the competitive nature of that keyword phrase I couldn’t resist a chance to get to page 1 on the Google SERPS (search engine results page) and suck up some juicy traffic.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Above is the Sitening graph that shows my position on the Google SERPS for the phrase, 'online money making' over the last few weeks. Up until today I had been planning a little 'victory post' showing how I fought the battle and made it to Page 1 in Google.

All was not to be
For a totally unknown reason I disappeared without trace from position 67 for 'online money making'. Perhaps this has something to do with the Page Rank update? Or a simultaneous algorithm change?

All is not Lost
I am going to get the to bottom of this murder mystery Sherlock Holms style. ... All I need is a Sidekick! I will do a little 'experimentation' and perhaps a little more 'blog science'. Stay Tuned!

Have you found you have suddenly disappeared off of Google or maybe shot up the SERPS?.

Freedom From John Chow!

2007-04-30T18:52:00.001Z

Before the Page Rank Update, one of the many ingenious methods I used to increase my future Google Page Rank was to be on JohnChow's top commentator list. I managed to do this using the URL of Affiliate Programs and Internet Scams. John had a PR4 but updated to a PR6.

Those of you who think of yourself as somewhat 'wise owls' will be dying to tell me that Google Page Rank is constantly being updated and that what the Toolbar shows is 'only a snapshot'. I have to admit I really don't understand why people bother saying this. The whole reason why I (and many other bloggers in this niche) were so exited about the update is because having that 'snapshot' is all it takes to convince advertisers that our site actually has that Page Rank; which in turn allows for easier and more lucrative site monetisation. It is only about your sites search engine optimization, what it displays as PR matters too.

You might say 'isn't he being a bit cheeky to the advertisers?'. I say I am defiantly not. The next update probably wont be for another solid three months and so by then I would have easily gained that Page Rank the 'white hat' way; and probably rise above and beyond the stated Page Rank, giving the advertisers even more than they bargained for. If I were some backwater vagabond who was going to give up his blog, this would not be the case, however, fortunately I am not!

If you think about it, Page Rank is just like Gold. It doesn't really have a practical use, it just looks nice, but we have developed around it in such a way that it carries great value. I.e.:

We want it, because we make more from advertisers,
Advertisers want it because they can make more from other advertisers
etc etc, It just goes on for ever.

Nevertheless, according to my Sitening Tool Google has only updated some of the 'data centres' and will be updating the rest shortly.

Trick of the day:
I am mind numbingly happy I no longer 'need' to be on John Chow's top commentator list. However, if you are looking for a devilishly cheeky way to get an easy PR6 link at the next update, you may want to consider giving it a try!

How To Get Targeted Visitors To Yours Website

2007-04-29T17:01:00.001Z

First of all I would like to say hi to all the readers of Matt’s blog Successful Online Money Making. I’m Haroon author of Earning Blog and Blogging Haroon and I’m very happy that Matt is publishing my post on his Blog. It’s a post on SEO and in this post I will tell you how to get Targeted Traffic To Your Website.

In order to create a successful website you must have traffic or visitors to your site. Without traffic your perfect site is useless. Because traffic is an essential element of any successful site, many webmasters make the mistake of believing all traffic is generated equally. That’s where they make a huge mistake.

And if traffic is the King then targeted traffic is the God. Any type of traffíc is good, but there is a great distinction between ordinary traffic and targeted traffic.
So here are some ways you can take to get targeted traffic to your site:

Search Engines are Your Key To Sucess

Google is still the important one you should be worshipping online. Don't ignore the other two major demigods Yahoo! and MSN, but Google will deliver most of your traffíc. Your website stats will point this out to you daily, so you must optimize your site for Google. But if you need traffic coming quickly optimize your site for Yahoo because from my past experiences I have learnt Yahoo gives you traffic quickly. Google takes times to get to send some good amount of traffic.

Target The Right Keywords

You must target the right keywords in order to get useful traffíc to your site. You must first check the number of searches and amount of competition for your chosen keywords. You can use sites like sites like www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ and http://inventory.overture.com which will give you the Overture and Word Tracker monthly stats to help you pick the right keywords for your site. Instead of picking highly competitive keywords, take the middle road and milk the 'long tail keywords’.

Have Relevant Content

Relevant, helpful content will also be the biggest magnet for targeted traffic. Surfers are usually looking for information, give them what they want and your site will reap the rewards. Original, high quality, relevant content will draw in targeted traffíc to your site so make sure you have some good content to satisfy your visitors and the search engines. Keep everything on topic and within the scope of your site.

Use Traffíc Modules

One of the most effective ways to bring in targeted traffíc is to create traffíc modules: whole areas of your site devoted to one sub-topic. For example, if you have a general site on cars, you could develop a whole section on a car-buying guide. Another section could be on car accessories, link all these pages together into a neat traffíc cluster on your site. The search engines will love these closely grouped pages and reward you with lots of targeted traffíc. Never stop learning new ways of how to increase website traffic.

Use Social Media
Build links and contacts in all the important social media networks such as MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. These social networks are a great source of targeted traffic.
On this note I’m finishing this post and I hope to write more articles for Matt in the future.
Thanks
Haroon

Google Updates Toolbar Page Rank!

2007-04-28T17:12:00.000Z

At last Google have finally updated the Page Rank shown in their Toolbar! I am very happy about this! This site got a PR4 and Affiliate Programs and Internet Scams (my other site) did too. I am especially 'proud' to see how, despite my other site being only a third the age of this one, I managed to play 'catch up' and get an equal Page Rank!

I'm sure every other blogger in the blogosphere has posted about the PR update today. It could be said that it’s a waste for me to continue the trend. I could have gone for the 'controversial post', which I would have called 'Why all the talk of the PR update? but that would have been plain stupid. It is obvious why we are all exited about the Page Rank, simply because it allows for easier and more lucrative site monetization.

Page Rank is one of the major requirements third parties like Text Link Ads and ReviewMe are after.

I will post in more detail about Page Rank in the near future. In the meantime remember I am still looking for guest bloggers.

What the Romans did for Blogging

2007-04-27T12:12:00.000Z

Unless you live in what was once part of the Roman empire, you probably don't watch the TV show called 'What the Romans did for us', although you defiantly would have been influenced by the Romans in one way or another (ever heard of the butterfly effect?).

Even to the most un 'historically aware' person it is more than obvious that the Romans didn't write blogs, due to the plain and simple fact that they didn't have computers; but they did have diaries and records. The word blog, is short for 'Weblog', and for many of us a diaries is a form of log. Therefore, the Romans had one of the first blogs, they just weren’t 'online'.

I am currently studying Tacitus, a Roman historian. It is interesting to note that his motives for (b)logging is to form a record of the past and to entertain his audience, which by the way, I would say he needed to work on a little!

I do joke about how boring he is, but the truth is he does use some useful techniques that make some parts of is 'Annals of Imperial Rome' actually quite enjoyable.

Methods We Can Learn From
Getting the dirt on the individual. Like it or not, people like gossip, and mentioning names of the specific 'celebrities' you think your audience have a knowledge of is a great way to get them hooked.

Example Tacitus lets us know about how the emperor Nero tried to kill is mother Agrippina (who he committed incest with many times) by putting her in a mouldy old boat, so that she fell through the bottom. She then escaped by swimming!. While Nero clearly needed to work on his assassination methods, that little story probably didn't affect the course of history very much, but its inclusion by Tacitus made my day.

Don't spare the gory details. I have read many a blog that is full of 'okish' content. The blogger clearly knows what he/she is talking about but they leave out the figures and fail to give the details that led them to that conclusion. Tacitus includes every possible detail, making for a lengthy read, but an entertaining one.

Example Tacitus writes about how a Roman legion was being punished for rumours of a mutiny. The commander chose to have them 'decimated' like in the 'olden days'. This is when the men are all lined up and every 10th man is flogged to death. Pretty extreme? Call me sadistic, but it kept me reading.

Talk about the Scandals
This is one of the more well known blogging techniques, to get the 'scoop' on a scandalous story and milk it for all it's worth. Of course this can't be done too often or you risk losing credibility.

Example Tacitus didn't let the emperors off easy. If anything he was quite the opposite. He recorded how on one occasion Nero had a secret door built into the senate building and a Vail set up so he could hide his mother Agrippina behind it! Women were defiantly not allowed in the senate and at the time this was totally outrageous. It's even slightly funny because it shows how Nero was a 'mummas boy'... in every possible way.

The Grand finale
Hopefully I have proved that we can learn a lot from Tacitus's records of the Romans, but not that much from the Romans themselves (although Tacitus was a Roman... ). Stay tuned for more tales of interest.

I Like Big Blogs ... and I Cannot Lie!

2007-04-26T20:22:00.000Z

All you other bloggers can't deny that you are not going to re-visit a blog that has less than 10 posts. You probably still wouldn't bother even if contained a few more than that. The point is that the bigger the blog the bigger the traffic. It's commonly written that past blog posts continue to get search engine traffic even after the blogger has long since met his/her grizzly end, (or at least stopped blogging); but how true is this?

Case Study - Of Myself
You may remember several weeks back when I was busy setting up and writing the content for my other site I failed to post every day on this blog, and for about two weeks it became an 'every other day' affair. Believe it or not that affected this site's traffic in a massive way.

Just before I started this brief period of posting every other day, I received a link from JohnChow.com for winning his Guess my February income contest. This boosted this sites traffic up to its all-time high, of 310 page views for that day, which went down to 256 page views the next day and gradually decreased down to a fairly constant 200 page views each day. Constant, that is, until I failed to post each day.

The reduction in traffic was overwhelming. Within a week of posting every other day traffic slumped from 200 to 40-100 pageviews per day.

But what could be the cause?
At the moment 32% of this blogs readers are returning visitors. From my experience this is a pretty high percentage and can help explain the traffic drop. If a sizeable percentage of my readers don't find this site via e.g. Google, then that means that when they/you see I haven’t posted they/you don't bother coming back for a couple of days. This is just my theory; your ideas are greatly welcomed!

If you wanted to know about the current state of traffic, my response would be that it is 'sort of middelish'. Meaning, my search engine traffic has dropped, due to loosing my page 1 in the Google SERPS for phrases like 'AGLOCO scam', which used to rake in a lot of traffic. I am not actually disappointed with this. To maintain a page 1 in Google for that phrase I would have to post about AGLOCO every few days, which I know is not what most of my readers want.

What does it all mean?
You could call it a failure of SEO planning, or a success of focused content writing. Call it what you like, the two lessons to be learnt are:

1. Posting daily has its benefits. It’s a fairly well known phrase, to 'post only when you have something to say'. I agree with this wholeheartedly, but I have found that if I have the time to do more surfing the net, or finding another source of mental substrate I end up having something to say.

2. Find keywords and stick with them. This is a pretty obvious one, which I have implemented on my new site. However, with this being my first ever site; when I started it in on December 30th 2006 I had never even heard of keywords! Now if that isn't learning while earning I don't know what is!

The Ultimate Alexa Redirect Experiment: Results are in!

2007-04-26T16:00:00.000Z

Last Tuesday I started The Ultimate Alexa redirect Experiment. At last the results are here! We were trying to find out if having people visit your site via the Alexa redirect (http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?http://matt608.blogspot.com) actually increases Alexa ranking like so many blogs claim it does.

The Data:
Remember this is blog science so I'm not about to calculate the standard deviation! There are far too many sources of error, (which I will outline), for that to be of any use. At first glance it may look like there was too little data to work with, but all is not as it may seem...

At the beginning of the Experiment Successful online money making ! had an Alexa rank of:

251,591. It has now risen by 31,550 to
220,041

There were a total of just 23 clicks of the redirect I placed with on this blog as part of the experiment. Thankfully Mybloglog came to the rescue!. I used a redirect to send people from Mybloglog to here. I only use free mybloglog stats which record the last 7 days of activity, rather than the 9 days that the experiment ran for. However, the chances are that the some of the people who visited via Mybloglog clicked the redirect again here, and voted that they did so (it has no effect to click it twice), which helps even out the odds.

There were 37 clicks on the Mybloglog redirect.
There were 23 clicks on the on-site redirect
Making 50 total clicks!

Overview
- Put simply, it all 'averages out' and 50 redirect clicks is a pretty accurate figure.
- Before the experiment started this sites Alexa ranking and stopped increasing, it had formed a plateau.
- Traffic had actually decreased early on in the experiment (I failed to post daily) but I doubled back up again a few days ago.

This means that on average there was less traffic during the experiment than before when the Alexa ranking had stopped increasing. Despite this, the Alexa rank increased a noticeable amount. The traffic increased (up to the same amount as before) due to my post called What the Ancient Egyptians taught me about blogging. Alexa Viewbar users tend to be more numerous in tech sites, and so this burst of users are unlikely to be the cause of the increase in Alexa rankings.

Above is a screenshot of the Alexa 'reach' graph for this site. The big red arrow points to the increase in apparent reach since I started the experiment.

The Conclusion
Using the Alexa redirect does increase Alexa rankings! I am very pleased to announce this because using the Alexa redirect is so simple! There have been so may posts containing ‘Alexa tips’ that have no proof that they actually work; well, now we do!

What can we draw from all this?
What this does show is how easy it is to manipulate the Alexa rankings. This isn't an 'black hat' technique, Alexa have not said they disapprove of this. If anything, using the Alexa redirect is sending them more data, which they must like. If you are glad to hear this news then go ahead and make the most of it. I know I will be.

Guest Bloggers Wanted!

2007-04-24T19:29:00.000Z

Before anyone asks I am not looking for guest bloggers for any of the following reasons:

1. I'm diying
2. I'm going to Jail
3. I'm finally moving to the moon

The real reason is that the cursed exams are upon me! To make up for all the blogging I have done during the year (and lack of 'real' work) these A Level exams mean a ton of revision. At the moment I maintain two blogs, this one and 'Affiliate Programs and Internet Scams'.

I am aiming to have guest bloggers posting on both sites, so I that am writing just one post per day instead of two, ideally alternating between the two sites. This will only last for a month or so until my exams have all blown over and then I will be free to blog my heart out in my gap year.

I have already asked a few of my blogger friends but at the moment they are all blogged down in their own online ventures (which I totally understand).

As you can probably guess if you want to guest blog on this site, you will be writing about blogging and making money online. My other site focuses more specifically on affiliate programs and internet scams, which is what your post(s) will need to be about.

You may include in your post:
- Links to your site in the post! Providing they are relevant and don't disrupt the flow of the article.
- 5 lines in italics at the top of the post where you can introduce yourself and include a total of 2 links!

What else will you get?
- Free links to your site. This blog is predicted a Google Page Rank of 5 at the impending update and so those links will be quite valuable. The other normal SEO benefits also come with the inbound links to your site, not to mention the bonus on ranking systems like Technorati

- You can start to create a name for yourself in this niche. You may already have a 'online money making' blog and are looking for some extra traffic and a boost; or perhaps you have a blog in a totally different niche and want to launch your site with a bang.

- Social bookmarking benefits. At, for example Digg.com, posts tend to get Dugg more often if their author didn't submit them. You could submit your post too all of the social bookmarking sites (using the Socialiser button which appears at the bottom of every post) and use your account on each site to submit them. The voters will see that the URL is different from that of the author who submitted them and so are more likely to vote for it!

- My gratitude and friendship! This may sound useless, but if you guest blog here there is no question that I will visit your blog regularly, comment on it and probably mention it in future posts. I don’t mean this will be a ‘forced affair, I have found that I naturally visit the blogs of people I regularly ‘network’ with.

- If you are just launching a new section to your blog that is relevant; your post can be about it! (This does not mean you can write an entire post about a new blogger freebie blog you are starting, hopefully you get the idea).

These are a the things I would like my guest blogger(s) to posses:
1. Good blogging and writing technique. We can't have the place falling apart when I'm busy!
2. Bloggers who have some experience the aforementioned niches. I'm not asking for experts, but theres no point in you posting about something I have already covered or that backtracks on this blogs development.
3. Enthusiastic bloggers whose passion will show through in their posts.

There is no precise 'word limit' for your posts, but 200 words is an absolute minimum, going all the way up to about 1000 if you want. If you would like to guest blog, just leave a comment to say hi, and/or e-mail me at mattjones@affiliatescamguide.com

PS. Don’t forget to take part in The Ultimate Alexa Redirect Experiment!. I will post the results of the Experiemt as soon as Alexa updates its records.

No More Kontera!

2007-04-23T20:19:00.000Z

I hinted in my last post that I would be making some changes to this site. I have just removed the Kontera code from this sites template. Kontera provided the 'in-text-content links', which were the words in actual posts that were underlined in orange. This may seem like a fairly minor change, but I assure you it is a tiny one in comparison to the things to come!

Why did I remove them?
1. They hardly made any money. I made a grand total of about $7 with them and they were here for over a month.

2. They make the page slow to load! This page may have loaded super speedy for you, but for me it loaded far to slowly, even with my high-speed broadband!

3. They looked bad. No matter how you disguise them, Ads look bad.

4. They are bad for the readers’ experience. I hadn't bothered to filter out unrelated or scammy sites, so who knows what I was promoting and where I was sending people.

5. I was getting sick of the over-monetisation. I think this is something you can only understand if you have spent a certain amount of time blogging. I have reached the stage where I read a lot of blogs and I am ashamed to say that this site was (and still is) grossly over monetised compared to almost all the blogs I read. I have formed a sense of pride in what I blog and my standards are being raised all the time. No more sneaky tacky ads. Thanks Maki for giving me the nudge I needed.

Will the Adsense go too? Wait and see.

I'm not expecting the removal of Kontera advertising to have a major effect on this blog, but it is a step in the right direction. It’s funny actually, people spend a lot of time waiting with eager anticipation of the day their blog 'comes of age' for acceptance into an advertising group; but losing Kontera is a relief. I have finally dropped a heavy burden.

What the Ancient Egyptians Taught me about Blogging

2007-04-22T18:29:00.000Z

Blogging down the ages

You may think there can be no way in the afterlife that there is a link between one of the oldest civilisations on earth and one of the most modern pastimes, but you would be wrong. The Ancient Egyptians blogged in Stone.

Mans desire to communicate and make a statement to the world is as old as when we evolved from homo-erectus. Bloggers, much like Pharaohs want to leave a Legacy. To do this their blog or 'Stella' must be eye catching. The Pharaohs did this by having no ads and focused on quality content. They gave the populous what they wanted and needed, which was a belief system (a mental routine). As an added bonus the Pharaoh would become deified in the process (linked with the god, AmunRe) and gain a form of immortality.

Cartouche's, (see image below/left, are the engraved pharaohs name encircled in a loop) I like to think of as the hyperlinks of the ancient world. King lists were engraved on walls of temples and much like the Technorati Favourites Train which had a viral effect. There are now 100s of copies of them recorded by numerous past civilisations not to mention the 1000s of modern copies. They wanted to be remembered and those that had their names engraved deep enough, backed up with quality content succeeded. When a new dynasty came along they would (try to) destroy the records of the past one, re-branding it by rubbing away the past cartouches and writing their own one over them. Over time the names were engraved deeper and deeper to make it harder to write over. The beautiful thing about the Internet is that you can re-brand yourself whenever you like!

Bloggers know that controversy can be a path to traffic and a reputation. Akhenaten, the heretic king is a perfect example of this. In the New Kingdom (1567-1085BC) he set up is very own city (using Wordpress ;) at El Amarna and made everyone worship the sun disk, which was known as 'the Aten', hence his name, Akhenaten. If he hadn't done this, he would have been 'just another pharaoh' and I probably wouldn't have even studied him. In being controversial, he set him self apart from the competition and even changed the nature of art itself. Blogging is an art and top bloggers have the power to change it.

There were competitions between different cult centres, e.g. the cult of Osiris at Abydos and that of Amun at Thebes. This caused the peoples 'mental routine/belief system' to change and the pharaohs (who are the bloggers in this analogy) had to account for that.

If my archaeology classes have taught me anything, it is that certain rules apply to everything. They key points here are:

1. Have a mental routine, but it needs to be adaptable so it can change when the need arrives.
2. Engrave your writing deeply by writing strong unique content.
3. Be eye catching and not plastered with tacky banner ads (as well as other ads).
4. Use the power of viral marketing, it’s for the greater good, of the clever minority....
5. If you don't like your blog, re-brand it! This may happen very soon with this site...
6. Be controversial, but not to often. Note that Akhenaten’s new city and religion were destroyed after his death and El Amarna has never been re-discovered!

Smorty: Connecting advertisers with bloggers

2007-04-22T09:03:00.000Z

A couple of days ago I read about Smorty on How to Earn Money Blogging. Smorty is another 'get paid to blog' service that sponsors blog posts. Advertisers can pay bloggers to write opinion posts with links back to the advertisers site. The usual controversy about blog advertising and bloggers selling their identity surrounds this issue. However, I am happy for blogs I read to have sponsored posts spread out amongst the other posts, as long as the quality of the normal posts remains high.

Smorty's 'slogan' that Advertisers can "Advertisers can pay bloggers to write opinion posts" helps to lessen the damage a sponsored post can potentially do to a blog. The Advertisers are not buying a positive opinion from the blogger, but simply paying them to display their opinion publicly (which they hope is a positive one). Much like PayPerPost the toughest requirement for getting your blog accepted is that it must be over 3 months old.

Smorty have a very crisp and clean site. They also boast some valuable unique features. For example beneath each offer it says how many of that offer are still available, allowing bloggers to prioritise which offer to take first. They also have a minimum payout of $6 per offer.

With the recent burst of get paid for blogging sites smorty could do well, providing they keep lots of offers that cover a wide variety of niches.

Breaking news: PayPerPost has Bought a Company!

2007-04-21T09:43:00.000Z

Payperpost (a service that sponsors posts on blogs) announced that they have bought a company! Next week they will announce what that company is and what exactly it will mean for us.

For now all we can do is speculate. Buying a company clearly shows PayPerPost's growth. Being a member/fan of PayPerPost I say good for them. A lot of the veteran 'posties' say PayPerPost are deteriorating and only have offers about real estate and credit cards, however I disagree.

PayPerPost may have a smaller range of offers than in the past, but they are still one of the highest paying and most reliable sponsored posting services out there. This acquisition (whatever it may be) will hopefully enable PayPerPost to add new features to their service, which is becoming aged. It wont be long before they will lose the advantage of their reliable reputation. They are in danger of becoming just 'one of the many' sponsored posting sites, instead of the leader of the pack.

I am actually quite exited about what this new company could do for PayPerPost. Maybe there will be more offers relevant to the 'blogging and making money online' niche. It should coincide nicely with the Google Page Rank update, (when it finally happens), enabling us to all make more money!

Alexa: The Definitive Review

2007-04-19T13:58:00.000Z

What is Alexa?

Alexa released their Toolbar in 1997 and by using the data, which is constantly being collected from over 10million toolbar users; they have formed the largest and most comprehensive traffic ranking system on the Internet. Alexa also has Websearch which incorporates Toolbar data to give a more varied spread of results than 'normal' search engines like Google. There are many common misconceptions about Alexa that hopefully this review will clear up.

The Toolbar data is divided up into main three categories:

1. Reach is the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site. For example, “if a site like yahoo.com has a reach of 28%, this means that of all global Internet users measured by Alexa, 28% of them visit yahoo.com”
2. Page Views is the number of pages viewed by Alexa Toolbar users. Multiple page views of the same page made by the same user on the same day are counted only once.
3. Traffic Rank (the main Alexa Rank) is based on the geometric mean of Reach and Page Views averaged over time.

Alexa have revealed some tasty information on their blog about how their ranking system works.

Additional Important Details
- Alexa only provides rankings for sites which Toolbar users have visited in the past 3 months - all other sites will show no data" for their ranking.
- The closer a site is to #1, the more reliable its ranking is. Sites ranked over 100,000 do not have very reliable traffic rankings because Alexa has so little traffic data for them.
- The overall Traffic Rank is updated approximately every week

That’s quite a lot of fiddly information to take onboard! But there are very good reasons for understanding Alexa and getting a higher traffic rank.

Why does Alexa Matter?

1. Many third parties use the Alexa Traffic rank to form a judgement of the advertising value of your site. A higher ranking means they can charge Advertisers more money and you make more money as a result. (I am grouping selling text links, banners and sponsored posts all into this category).
2. A higher Alexa traffic rank means you can charge/negotiate a higher price selling advertising space directly to advertisers.
3. Having a high Alexa traffic rank is a great thing to brag/use to promote your site with. This has many possible uses, for example acquiring more beneficial link exchanges. It was recently announced that blogrolls still matter, namely for ranking highly in the Google Blogsearch. Telling a blogger you have a Alexa rank of say10,000 will defiantly make them think twice before ignoring your link exchange request.
4. Displaing your Alexa rank in a prominent position on your blog/website. Much like displaying the number of subscribers to your blog this should only be done with an impressive enough figure. Displaying this Alexa figure not only shows the popularity of your blog but may also remind your readers to use the Alexa Toolbar when visiting your site, which raises your ranking further.
5. A higher Alexa ranking gives you more authority in your niche. Although most webmasters know about Alexa's 'favour' towards Toolbar users it would defiantly give your voice more weight if you have a higher ranking compared to someone with a ranking in the millions.

Most webmasters don't realise the Toolbar is Alexa's only source of information calculating page views that they are more than 'skewing' the graphs in the Toolbar users favour. The effect, however, is that tech sites or sites aimed at more web savvy users will have an unfairly higher ranking than sites for 'normal people'.

Below is a section from the graph displaying this sites Reach compared to my newer sites’ reach.

Lately there has been a burst of talk about 'gaming the ranking systems'. I have myself have taken part in the Technorati Favourites Train (I would highly recommend you doing the same).

There are plenty of obvious ways to increase Alexa ranking. Most are much the same as increasing Google ranking; for a very good reason. Remember the number of visitors using theAlexa Toolbar determines ranking, therefore a higher ranking in Google (and other search engines) results in more traffic, and more Toolbar users visiting your site.

Is there another way get a higher Alexa ranking?

The answer is probably and you can help us all find out. On Tuesday I started The Ultimate Alexa Redirect Experiment

Using an Alexa redirect is the 'unofficial' ways to game the Alexa system. ‘They say’ people visiting you site through a redirect improves Alexa rank. This experiment aims to discover if it actually works or not. This "http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?" is placed in front of the URL. A redirect for this site is:

http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?http://matt608.blogspot.com

An Alexa redirect only counts 'Once per day from an IP address'

How to take part in the Experiment

1. Click this Alexa redirect. (It will take you straight back to this site)

Click me I'm a re-direct!

2. Click in the box that you have clicked the redirect.

3. Come back tomorrow and repeat. The number of people who click each day determines how accurate and informative this experiment will be, so tell people about it!

EDIT: Please click the link even if you are using the toolbar. This site will be getting roughly the same number of visitors using the Alexa toolbar as it used to and so to make the experiment as fair as possible it is better if everyone clicks the redirect (and marks in the box that they did so). Thanks.

I will post the results on Wednesday unless I think it is necessary to extend the experiment.

You can download the Alexa toolbar here

Related Alexa reading:
20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank
The Alexa blogger blog
The Alexa FAQ (you would be surprised how few people have read it)

John Chow fans - Pass the Pen Game: Update!

2007-04-18T10:23:00.000Z

Remember take part in The Ultimate Alexa redirect experiemnt

1. Click this Alexa redirect. (It will take you straight back to this site)

Click me I'm a re-direct!

2. Click in the box that you have clicked the redirect.

3. Come back tomorrow and repeat. The number of people who click each day determines how accurate and informative this experiment will be, so tell people about it!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

John Chow fans - Pass the Pen Game: Update!

Remember back in March I guessed John Chow's February income and won aa watch and a pen?

Since then the pen has travelled half way round the world!

It started off in the most capable hands of John Chow in Canada. It was then sent to me (1.) in Cambridge, England, UK which is where the Pass the pen game began.

Since then it has been to:
2. Cardiff (Wales, UK)

Where it was picked up by Jay from Monney4hunny.

3. Vancovuer (BC, Canada)

Where it was picked up by Greg Stratz from Stratz’s blog

To be sent the pen next head on over to Stratz’s blog where the rules are posted.

At the top of this post is my artistic map of where the John Chow pen has been. To get your county on the map and a mention from me you just have to be sent the pen and post it on your blog!

I’m sure some of you will make outrageous claims that England is ridiculously oversized; but we all know your lying (Mike will back me up on this). Shall we call it a political map?

The Ultimate Alexa Redirect Experiment!

2007-04-17T09:47:00.000Z

The Alexa ranking system uses many of the expected factors such as traffic and link popularity. However, some of us know the 'unofficial' ways to game the Alexa system. This doshdosh style experiment aims to discover if the number 1 unofficial method (the Alexa redirect) actually works or not.

Using the Alexa Redirect.

Placing this in front of the URL:

http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?

So a redirect for this site is:

http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?http://matt608.blogspot.com

An Alexa redirect only counts 'Once per day from an IP address' but how much effect does it actually have on the rankings? This experiment will last for one week and will finally give us some quantitative data about Alexa.

How to take part

1. Click this Alexa redirect. (It will take you straight back to this site)

Click me I'm a re-direct!

2. Click in the box that you have clicked the redirect.

3. Come back tomorrow and repeat. The number of people who click each day determines how accurate and informative this experiment will be, so tell people about it!

I will have these instructions and the poll posted at the top of every post for this week so you won't have to go rummaging around in the archives to find this post each day.

Successful online money making ! currently has an Alexa rank of 251,591. At the end of the 7-day experiment we can see if there is any increase and how big that increase is. (I will work out the averages and some graphs for you).

The Technorati Favourite's Train

2007-04-16T10:42:00.000Z

Everyday Weekender has told me about the Technorati Favourites Train. (I'm spelling it the English way no matter what you say :D).

It is an extension of the Technorati Favourite Exchange started by Maki at DoshDosh. I’m guessing it’s going to have a similar effect as the Z list only this time our Favourite ranking will increase as well!

Join now, get in early and watch your rankings Skyrocket!.

An easy way to copy the list is to go View - View Source and then Edit - Find and type in 'Start Copying Here' and then copy it from there.

***Start Copying Here:***

Here are the rules:

1) Write a short introduction paragraph about what how you found the list and include a link to the blog that referred you to the list.

2) COPY the Rules and ENTIRE List below and post it to your blog. To avoid duplicate content and increase the amount of keywords your site can accessible for, go ahead and change the titles of the blog. Just don’t change the links of the blog.

3) Take “My New Faves” and move them into the “The Original Faves” list.

4) Add 3 Blogs that you’ve just added to your Technorati Favorites to the “My New Faves” section. Remember to also add the “Fave Me” link next to your new blogs (i.e. http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://www.yourfavesdomain.com)

5) Add Everyone on this list to your Technorati Favorites List by clicking on “Fave the Site.” Those who want good kharma will fave you back. If not, you will for sure get the benefits of faves from the bloggers who continue this list after you.

My New Faves

The Rojak Blog - Fave the Site
derrich.com - Fave the Site
GarryConn.com - Fave the Site
Kumiko's Cash Quest - Fave the Site
Dotmyspot - Fave the Site
making money online with a 13-year old - Fave the Site

The Original Faves

Successful Online Money Making ! - Fave the Site

Affiliate Programs - Fave the Site

Net Business Blog - Fave the Site

Career Ramblings - Fave the Site

Ramblings from the Marginalized - Fave the Site

Everyday Weekender - Fave the Site

Bobs [ReformatThis] - Fave the Site

Armen’s Blog - Fave the Site

Gary Lee - Fave the Site

Dosh Dosh - Fave the Site

Nate Whitehill - Fave the Site

Ms. Danielle - Fave the Site

Jeff Kee - Fave the Site

Scribble on the Wall - Fave the Site

Jimi Morrisons Head - Fave the Site

Jon Lee - Fave the Site

Samanathon - Fave the Site

Eat Drink & Be Merry - Fave the Site

The Man of Silver - Fave the Site

Hannes Johnson - Fave the Site

My Dandelion Patch - Fave the Site

Nathan Drach - Fave the Site

SiteLogic - Fave the Site

Julies Journal - Fave the Site

Stephen Fung - Fave the Site

Ed Lau - Fave the Site

QMusings - Fave the Site

***End Copying Here***

Bloggers Choice Awards

2007-04-14T19:26:00.000Z

There has been some buzz over the new site called bloggers Choice Awards. The name is pretty self-explanatory, they give out blog awards.

This is what Bloggers Choice Awards have to say about themselves:

"Votes will be shown on the site in real-time, so you can see who's leading within each category! Winners in each respective category will be recognized at a one-of-a-kind awards ceremony on June 2nd, at Postiecon in Orlando, FL. After the ceremony, the results will be posted on this page.
There are no restrictions to nominations, votes, or comments. You can nominate as many blog sites as you want. In fact, the more the better! You can also comment as often as you'd like. You may also vote for as many blogs as you like, but you can only vote once per blog, per category."

I can see bloggers choice awards become a popular site. It has a 'Web 2.0' feel to it and they have done well to separate themselves out from other voting sites.

What I like about bloggers choice awards is that you vote for a blog as a whole rather than individual posts like with Digg. This is a fairer system, because it incorporates the difficult aspect of blogging consistently which is totally ignored by Digg.

This blog has been nominated for a couple of the awards (e.g. best blog about blogging). I definitely don't expect to win, but a few friendly votes wouldn't go amiss. You can vote for me through the 'brag badge' at the top of this post. Don't forget you can nominate your own blog if you want just to get the ball rolling.

Happy voting.

Make Money with Affiliate Programs

2007-04-14T10:29:00.000Z

Amidst the era of AdSense it is important to look to the future and predict what the game will be. I think affiliate programs are a major contender for the future.

Why do I think it will be 'the thing' to make money with affiliate programs?
- There are so many different companies that have an affiliate program; unlike AdSence where there are a few major players with one dominating the market (Google AdSence). This means affiliate programs are more stable. There have been mutters that Google won't be able to maintain its incredible growth rate for much longer and if 'something happens' to Google people will turn to the ever present, ever reliable affiliate programs to make money with.

- Affiliate programs are very adaptable. Sure, Google Adsense is contextual and highly targeted, but affiliate programs have ultimate flexibility. They allow you to chose the precise product you think will have a high conversion rate. You can totally customise the colours and blend them perfectly (providing you know how). Some affiliate programs may not allow you to customise their code to your hearts content but that’s the great thing about them; you can just find another affiliate program that does and make money with them instead.

- Affiliate programs don't make your site look tacky (providing you know how to use them on your website/blog). Due to it's over-use AdSence is very recognisable and the telltale 'ads by Google' massively reduces the click-through rate. Affiliate programs (again provided you find the right one) don't have these picky rules and regulations that prevent you from customising the ads. This is better for everyone.

How is is better for everyone?
- You the publisher make more money.
- The affiliate program you are working with makes more money.
- The customer buys the product they want.

People argue that blending ads is sneaky and shouldn't be done. I say that with affiliate programs you are being less sneaky than with AdSence. To be successful with an affiliate program you are going to need to believe in the product you are selling and know something about it. This means the product is more likely to be reliable, because given the choice (which you are with affiliate programs) you wouldn’t promote a bad product. This is not at all true with AdSence!

People say not to link into a bad neighbourhood, but I have no idea what sites I am sending people to via my AdSence Ads!.

The downside is that it takes time to get to know your product and market it well on your site. However, most half-experienced bloggers know that putting in time and effort pays off handsomely and is better in the long run than making a few quick bucks. I believe making money with affiliate programs is the future, which is why I started myAffiliate Programs site to guide people (and myself) to find the best affiliate program to use. What do you think about the future of online advertising?

Blogs I actually read

2007-04-13T08:49:00.000Z

As you can see this blog links out to way too many blogs in its sidebar. The blogroll and the 'my favourite sites' link lists are killing me softly. I guess I myself am too much of a softie and just can't say no to a little blogger who asks for a link exchange. It’s time to toughen up.

Believe it or not I don't read every single one of those blogs in my sidebar every day. In fact I tend to stick to a pretty select group. The blogs below are the blogs that I long-ago memorised the URL for and visit daily.

They are all about making money online and most of them specialise in blogging. I think that everyone in the list reads each others blogs and most of us are at fairly similar stages in the 'blogging journey'.

1. DotMySpot.
Is written by the Malaysian moneymaking master Michael. He may be working with me on a new project I have started in the near future....

2. Mikesmoneymakingmission. Mike has been on a mission to make money with free blogs and he seems to be doing well having made over UK£758.25 or US$1364.85. His blog is full of useful articles for 'all the family'.

3. How to Earn Money Blogging is written by Daryl. He has been blogging for 4 months and has progressed in leaps and bounds. His site has a snazzy new layout and it already has some juicy content.

4. DoshDosh is written by Maki. It is becoming well known for the high quality posts and the unique look of the site; because each post has a pretty anime picture at the top of every post. I can see DoshDosh going 'all the way'.

5. Kumiko's Cash Quest. Kumiko has made her name in the blogosphere by her controversial AGLOCO posts and snappy blogging style; which contrasts her seemingly happy pink site layout.

6. Garryconn.com. If this were a 'spot the difference' post then GarryConn.com is the odd one out. This is because his blogging circle seems to be slightly different to mine and the bloggers mentioned above. His site has a totally unique design and is bursting to the brim with useful information to all of us 'make money online' bloggers. His site is specify about, "Successful Blogging, Search Engine Optimization, Making Money Online and Everything Else". It would be great to see some you become regular readers of Garryconn.com.

I also read JohnChow.com and Problogger on a daily basis but they are too big for a link exchange to get on my blogroll. Of course I do read some of the other blogs on my list from time to time but its impossible to read them all.

How many blogs do you actually read every day? Is my blog one of them? or maybe my other blog? ;)

Review My Blog posts for Cash!

2007-04-12T13:52:00.000Z

Before you say anything I am not starting yet another post that offers cash prizes from me to you for reviewing my blog. I am offering something even better.

I am joining the age-old PayPerPost crowd. Some have called it the 'dark side'. I call it the money side. My last post made me a cool $7.50 but PayPerPost have a clever way that enables you to make money by reviewing my blog!

Many of you know about this already, but this is the deal:

- Sign up to PayPerPost through one of the buttons I have added at the bottom of many of my blog posts. (PayPerPosts toughest entry requirement is that your blog must be at least 3 months old).
- PayPerPost pay you $7.50 for writing a review of one of my blog posts and posting it on your blog.
- PayPerPst pay me $7.50 too!

I'd say (obviously I would) that this is way better than having the 'chance to win' money for the best review. Provided you get in to PayPerPost you are guaranteed the cash!...and so am I :)

If you haven’t signed up to PayPerPost already then go through one of my buttons and make us both a quick and easy $7.50!

Largest Blog Comment Chain World Record Attempt

2007-04-10T09:23:00.000Z

On the PayPerPost blog they are attemtping to create the largest 'comment chain' ever. They are aiming pretty high and are trying for 2000 comments where only 10% can be from the author of the post. Its pretty high because there are only about 10 so far!

What makes this even more insane is that they are offering $7.50 to anyone who blogs about it to spread the word. To do this you need to pass the payperpost entry requirements. Many bloggers are rejected because their blog isn't over 90 days old. This blog is just over 90days old and this is my first ever sponsored post from any sponsored posting service ever!

If you are already a member of Payperpost or you have a blog that is over 90 days old then why not head on over there and make some quick bucks! You might as well add a comment to their blog post while you're at it.

Google Page Rank isn't Everything

2007-04-09T15:21:00.000Z

Its funny to see that with the impending Google Page Rank update everyone is scurrying around sorting out link exchanges and making their blog in tip top condition. It's almost as if Google is our mother coming to check up on us. We tidy our rooms, load the dishwasher and make sure we wear clean clothes. (some of you probably do this anyway... good for you!).

It is important to remember that Google, much like our mothers are not everything. Although the state of your blog at the time of the update is important, the old ways of getting a good ranking still apply.

What a higher Page Rank Does and can you achieve those things without it:

- Moves you up the rankings in Google for your keywords, sending you more traffic.

Page Rank helps with this but is not a necessity. The normal SEO techniques are still effective on blogs with a page rank of 0. Gaining inbound links and optimising your site for Google is still what it is all about.

- Allows you to be accepted by third parties to make more money from advertising E.G. Text Link Ads.

Garry conn doubts the importance of third parties and argues that you should do it yourself. However John Chow says its all about the relationship with the third party. I think for smaller-medium sized blogs third parties are defiantly the way to go; because after all, 'bad breath is better than no breath'. However for a site like Johns it’s easy to be nice to everyone including the third party.

- Allows you to be eligible for more sponsored posts. (This is a form of third parties advertising).

I'm taking about third parties like ReviewMe. There has been a raging debate in the blogosphere about writing sponsored posts. I say they are fine, but only in moderation. I have no problem with a blog I read making a few extra bucks by having the odd sponsored post here and there. However sponsored posts are often not written 'from the heart' and are not the bloggers actual point of view. Sponsored post run the danger of making the site lose its originality, and given that having unique content is what blogging is all about it then this is very bad!

I have previously written about the importance of blogging with personality; but as long as the normal, un-sponsored content continues as usual I have no problem with sponsored posts.

- Allows you to make link exchanges with more popular sites.

Link exchanges are a good way to get your site off the ground but as your Page Rank increases and your site becomes more popular they become less and less important. If your blog has good enough content you will be able to get 'natural' links from top sites anyway by 'link baiting'. I.E. If your contents stimulates a blogger to write about a similar topic they will probably use some of your ideas and reference you with a link in their post.

- Allows your blog to be accepted by directories that have a minimum page rank requirement.

- Is a way of promoting your blog, people like reading successful blogs. A higher pagerank indicates 'the blogger knows what he is doing'.

You can show you are a professional mannered blogger by your content and layout without displaying your PageRank. Remember most people don't even know what Google Page Rank is. Displaying it is only worthwhile on sites in certain niches.

This blog has been predicted a PR4,5 and 6 from various different predictors. As I have tried to explain, it is possible to have a successful blog without a high Google Page Rank. As long as I get PR4 I will be happy. My other site Affiliate Programs is predicted a PR3. If I can get that up to PR4 before the update I will be over the moon.

If you don't get the Page Rank you have been hoping for do not despair!. If you are battling to raise your predicted Page Rank just ask me for a link exchange. If I like your blog enough I might just go through with it.

AGLOCO Impending Viewbar Release

2007-04-07T09:57:00.000Z

The AGLOCO Viewbar is very nearly upon us. The Viewbar will be released in batches, those who signed up first get the Viewbar first. The AGLOCO company blog had this to say:

"Currently, the plan is to have the Viewbar first be available to Members with ID#s beginning in BBBB to BBBF (as well as Members with an ID# beginning in “AGLO”). This is about 50,000 Members."

After that they will of course release it to more members. My ID is within this batch so I will be getting it soon! Unfortunately, however, this initial release is for Windows Vista, XP and 2000 and isn't available for Macs yet. As a Mac user this is a bit annoying but I'm sure I can get hold of a PC for 5 hours a month.

AGLOCO have made deals with 17 different ad networks and a few independent advertisers. This is good news because they are spreading their weight and giving 1000s of advertisers the chance to use the Viewbar.

I'm pretty exited about the whole thing, you should be too!

To be a part of the excitement join AGLOCO here.

AGLOCO - Viewbar Scam?

2007-04-03T11:20:00.000Z

Everyone knows by now that I support AGLOCO, but I cannot keep singing their praises all day long. The continual delaying of the Viewbar release is starting to get to me. Some top referrers say that they want more delays because it means they can get easy referrals before the competition hots up.

I beg to differ.

The continual delays of the AGLOCO Viewbar is damaging my downline. Allow me to explain:

Only a very small percentage of AGLOCO members actually bother to make new referrals (like most referral schemes). The delaying of the Viewbar makes this percentage decrease even further! The AGLOCO blog frequently boasts about how they are achieving record numbers of referrals each week; but I'd say that by a massive number of the active referrers have lost interest.

Overall the company may still be growing, but a slice of its founding members (members with referrals) will have given up. This slice consists of the 'middle - low level' members who have less than 50 people in their downline. The chances are if you have less than 50 direct referrals you wont have made that 'magic signup' who goes and does the rest of the referring for you.

These 'middle - low level' people make up a very large proportion of AGLOCO founding members and their downlines are stale. They have done the hard work, made some referrals but those referrals don't want to wait months for the Viewbar release and so they won't make referrals themselves or use the Viewbar when it finally arrives.

Lets hope the AGLOCO blog has given an accurate prediction this time:

"The engineers have informed me that the Viewbar release is currently scheduled for between Monday April 2 and Monday, April 16"

I am in no way renouncing AGLOCO. I strongly believe their program can work, but if this Viewbar is delayed much longer it will be the 'middle - higher' members to start to get impatient for their earnings.

In a way these continuous delays are a scam. We have been expecting the Viewbar for months; they keep hanging the carrot tantalisingly close but never let us bite it. Perhaps it still it's still green and not ripe yet (like the AGLOCO site ). I can rest assured that when I finally get a bite of the AGLOCO carrot it will be sweet.

John Chow is Dead!

2007-04-01T13:35:00.000Z

EDIT: It turns out the suspicions of this being an April fools joke were true! He lives again!

John Chow, the friend of the community, the dot com mogul, a member of the Save the Whales Foundation; has finally left the blogosphere. Today he announced he was retiring from blogging in his last blog post to travel the world.

His blog started on the 1st December 2005. It has been a rollercoaster ride, even for his readers.

He announced that he is going, "On a Permanent Vacation". It's not Lord of The Rings John!"

"I have sold my company, TTZ Media Inc., to a Toronto based Internet Venture Company. The sale closed yesterday. I cannot disclose the sale price but it is enough that the interest on the money alone would put me in the top 1% income bracket."

In other words, he is Flipping Rich. He has been an inspiration to 10,000s of bloggers (maybe more?) and we will all miss him. I have no doubt that he was a major catalyst in the recent influx of bloggers, most of whom blog about making money online.

His Legacy
- He is one of the very top AGLOCO founding members and has massively influenced their success as a company, (which I eagerly await).
- Photos of his food! None of us can ever forget John after all those mouth-watering photos!
- His prizes! I am the proud owner of a crappy watch he sent me and his custom pen is now travelling the world, I believe at the moment it is somewhere in Cardiff (Wales). Maybe one day it will cross paths with him.

There has been some speculation as to whether this is all a big April Fools Joke. All I can say that if it is, you got me. Goodbye John, may your miscellaneous ramblings never truly cease.

Mylot - Joining the Web 2.0 Crowd?

2007-03-28T21:06:00.000Z

If you are a regular user of Mylot you may have noticed the site when down a couple of hours ago. It's back online again now and it's had quite a major update!

Logging on now greets you with a 'Myspace' style profile page. It contains a variety of information, for example a local weather report, sport teams I 'cheer for' as well as a sort of summary of discussions and hobbies. The old profile pages still exist but it looks a little different.

The whole thing looks like a shift in the 'Web 2.0' direction. Is Mylot becoming yet another social networking site? This isn't necessarily a bad thing, after all it shows the progress Mylot have made. They now boast 83,120 members, which is more than double the number they had when I joined. However, it has seemed like that growth rate has slowed down over the last few weeks.

The new profile page is found on the actual mylot homepage (once you log in... you will see what I mean). This means the days 'top discussions' are no longer the main focus. Perhapps Mylot is shifting away from its forum focus.

I am glad that Mylot are doing well, but in this attempt to keep up with other social sites they are entering into a very competitive area. They are also in danger of becoming all to similar to Myspace and Facebook. I hope they do not stray to far from their paid posting roots.

EDIT:
Mylot have also started a 'blogs' section. Users can add their blogs and subscribe to other blogs. You can create subscription buttons like the one below:

Provided by myLot

This blogging section is a really great addition! To make full use of it join Mylot now. I can't wait to see what they do next!

Using Forums to form a judgement of an a 'Make Money Online' program

2007-03-27T19:21:00.000Z

You have my apologies for not posting yesterday, I was at my old schools rock show and some friends of mine where performing; it was GREAT by they way :D

Anyway...

Forums. Where would we be without them? They have numerous uses, be it making 'friends'/business partners, having a rant about anything, or even getting paid to post like on Mylot.

Remember a few days ago I wrote about getting free traffic from free online advertising forums; well there is yet another use for forums and that is using them to form a judgement on a make money online program.

What is he on about?
The fact is that everyone uses forums. A very think and juicy slice of societies nerds, affiliate marketers, gamers and bloggers all use them. The point I am vainly attempting to make is that forum threads often give a fair view. I have seen numerous occasions when someone promoting an affiliate program has started a new thread containing a load of over promotional exaggerated pap. The 'people of the forum' often respond to these asking things about the site. Many of them reply saying they already know about that program and can prove it's a scam.

The number of replies can also tell you a lot about the 'make money online' program that is being promoted. If there are no replies, it either indicates:

a) That everyone already knows about it and has made their judgement
or
b) That the promoter has phrased what they are saying badly and no-one really cares because they are bad at making promotional posts.

a) Tells us that you don't want to join up because it has reached its full potential already
b) Tells you that you don't want to join up because you are still not convinced it's any good. It also tells you how not to post.

If there are numerous replies to a post about a make money online scheme, then you can read those replies and make your judgement accordingly.

And that’s forums… they are infinite in their uses.

Why Bloggers Need a Personality

2007-03-25T19:04:00.000Z

By know most people have heard the phrase 'content is king' and all that jargon about the importance of creating original and unique content. The 'business' reason for this is that content forms the basis of SEO. In short it does this by providing material for the search engines spiders to crawl and a way to categorise and rank a site. Secondly good content creates linkbacks; this sort of content has become known as 'linkbait' and is a productive and honest to make your site popular. My example of this is Maki from DoshDosh who has been cranking out post after quality post, which has created numerous linkbacks and brought popularity to DoshDosh.

So what does having a personality have to do with it?
In this day and age it is very hard to find a totally unique original topic that has a demand for it. This means bloggers have to develop new ways to make their site stand out from the competition. One of the easiest way to do this is to be honest and speak your mind. You don't have to follow down this line of thought very far to see why it works. Whatever your beliefs about life, the universe and blogging, everyone has experienced something different in their lives which makes their views unique.

Everyone has clicked on different pages on the internet and read different articles about blogging (well at least all bloggers have). This means all our views are going to be slightly different! My example of this is Kumiko from Kumiko's Cash Quest. She is gradually becoming known for writing quirky posts that are never quite what people expect. It is important to remember at this stage that repeatedly writing controversial posts isn't going to get you anywhere. Providing you have read enough about any given subject you will have formed a view of your own and there will be no reason to exaggerate your views.

A wise blogger (I can't remember who) once said that there are two paths to becoming a successful blogger. Either, by becoming an expert in your niche, or by becoming a well-known personality. My example of this is John Chow. The chances are that if you read this blog you also read JohnChow.com. This is because he has become both and expert in his niche (making money online - ish) and he is a bit of a celebrity. He shows what happens in the rare occasion someone manages both.

There are other added bonuses of 'having a personality'. These include the worship and fan mail of readers as well as hate mail and devastating spam attacks. Hate mail is a bonus simply because it ads some excitement to what at times can be a (dare it say it) boring profession of blogging. Perhaps I am being naive having never experienced hate mail, buy you know what they say, don't knock it till you've tried it.

SEO Tools

2007-03-24T19:13:00.000Z

Just a quick post about some free SEO tools that are essential for any site that you want to rank highly in the search engines. Sitening provides some great tools that you can use for free to analyse your SERPS (search engine results page) and other SEO related bits n bobs. (It doesn't have an affiliate program or anything, I'm not trying to sell you it!). A lot of bloggers would do a great big 'in-depth' analysis of Sitening, but it is pretty self-explanatory. A better use of your time would be to be check it out for yourself. So take a look!

BTW, one or two of the tools do charge you, but most are free.

short n snappy,

bing bang bosh.

SEO Video Tutorial Series - assessment

2007-03-23T22:04:00.000Z

You may remember a few weeks ago I posted part one of Brendon's SEO series. Here's the second part and it's pretty useful. You can watch the rest of the series at tailored.com.au. I know this is a bit of a short post, but they say a picture speaks a thousand words... so a video probably speaks even more!

AGLOCO - Small Victories

2007-03-22T19:47:00.000Z

I have reached 60 people in my AGLOCO downline!
Today I Made one direct and one indirect AGLOCO referral which brings me up to a nice round 60! You can see I have made 19 new referrals so far in March, which means I have almost averaged one new sign up each day. I am ovbiously very happy about this but I have been aiming too have 100 people in my downline by the AGLOCO viewbar release.

There was an interesting post on the AGLOCO company blog, which mentioned that the release date is currently "scheduled for between Monday April 2 and Monday, April 16 (between 12 and 26 days from now". If that date holds firm and I continue to refer at the current rate I will not make the 100 referrals, but I would have come pretty close.

Personally I blame my referrals. Just kidding!... Well it would be nice if they did some more recruiting but there is a reason for everything and it seems the reason is for this is that I have not been giving enough advice about getting AGLOCO referrals. In the near future I will be dishing out some advice, but for the meantime I can pass you on to John Chow's AGLOCO section, which is jam packed with inspirational advice. If you have not already then Contine the AGLOCO List, which has been continued by several AGLOCO blogs but is yet to take the net by storm like the Z list did a month or so back.

The next AGLOCO update will be when I reach 100 referrals or the viewbar release, (which ever comes first), so stay tuned.

Free Online Advertising Forums- Free traffic

2007-03-21T12:31:00.000Z

The use of forums is a much blogged about method of getting free traffic. Forums are a great starting point for getting your site traffic, they do this in 2 ways:

1. Directly. People click on the link to your site that is in your 'sig' (signature) or forum post.
2. Indirectly. The inclusion of a link to your site (even in your sig) counts as a valid link in the all-seeing eyes of the search engines. This moves you up their rankings, which brings you more organic traffic.

Below is a brief list of free advertising forums I would recommend to joining:

Free advertising forums
PromoteClick
cmather.com
The free ad forum
Post your ad for Free
WAHBO

A Google search for 'Free advertising forums' reveals a wealth of forums we can all use. The ones above are just some of the highest ranking ones which get the most traffic.

Things to remember
- Chose your user name appropriately. e.g. I have been using 'Matt@affiliateprograms' when promoting my new site.
- Pick an avatar image and stick with it. This is easier for you and also makes you more memorable. Personally I go for the mugshot.
- Write your Sig wisely. Don't include too many links. All that does is fragment possible clickers. I use a little slogan in my sig and keep it the same in each forum.
- Don't only post ads for your site. Respond to other posts. This gets you more links (as long as you include your sig) and more respect.

Those are a few tips of mine, I don't pretend to be the 'forum master' but hopefully those were useful.

How to stop Google Analytics tracking your own visits: Tutorial

2007-03-20T10:21:00.000Z

If you use Google Analytics it is very important to set up filters to stop your own visits to your site from skewing the statistics. This can be easily done and I will briefly outline the process:

1. Log in
2. Go to Account settings (in the top left).
3. Got to Filter manager
4. Click 'add filter'
5. You have several options here: You can either

- Exclude all traffic from a domain
- Exclude only traffic to a subdirectory
- Create a Custom filter (more advanced)
- Exclude all traffic from an IP address. To block your own visits this is the one to use.

6. You then make up a name for the filter.
7. Find your IP address and enter it in replacing the example they give. (enter it in the same format with the '\' included - just replace the numbers with your own).
8. The website that you are trying to create a filter for should have appeared in the 'available website profiles' box. Click on it once (so it turns blue) and then click 'add', which will move it into the 'selected website profiles box'.
9. Click 'finish' and your done!

John Chow fans - Pass the Pen Game!

2007-03-19T15:58:00.000Z

My prize for winning John Chow's Guess my February income contest finally arrived! That’s me fondling it in the photo above. The photo below shows the entire contents of my happy little package, which to my surprise also had a couple of free pens and Johns business card for The Tech Zone. Im wearing the sexy watch as I write this... although the metal bits holding the strap together are very filmsy...

Moving on, I promised you a game and so you're going to get one!

I hereby officially start the John Chow Fans - Pass the Pen Game!.
The game is very simple and fun. It results in a laugh and some community bondage, as well as a little linking love. Below is a pic of the official John chow pen we will be 'passing'. Sorry for the terrible out of focus image, I blame my camera... You may be able to make out the words;"www.JohnChow.com - The miscellaneous Ramblings of a dot com mogul".

but wait, how do we play?
1. The first person to comment on this post requesting that the pen be sent to them will be sent the pen! To be sent the pen you must have a blog and be a fan of John Chow. I must also have some degree of trust for you, so if your blog looks 'dodgy' or just plain crap I won't send you it! You must comment so everyone else can see, but email me your:

Name:
Address: (remember to include your country!)
PostCode:
Blog address:

to mattjones@affiliatescamguide.com so I can send the pen to you.

2. When you receive the pen, take a photo of it and smack it on your blog! Copy and Paste this exact list of instructions on your blog (numbers 1-4), with my email address included.

3. Shoot me a quick email including a link to your post. I will then write a follow up post, including your site your name and your county, and we will be able to see where the pen has been!

4. I will then continue to write a follow up post for every person the pen visits, until we have a list of different countries where the pen has been! If you took part in The official John Chow Fans - Pass the Pen Game feel free to write a follow up post as well about where the pen has been.

What’s the point?
Firstly you will get several links from me, because each follow up post I write will include you. That is not really the aim of the game though, it is community building and is a bit of fun. Who knows where the pen will end up! You may think there is a risk here, after all someone could ruin the fun and just keep hold of the pen. This would result in bad press for them and it's hardly worth anything, its a biro! Anyway that is why I must trust the person I send it to.

So who wants to play Pass the pen?

Garry Conn! and the Best Deals Online

2007-03-18T11:23:00.000Z

Every now and then I mention Garry Conn, without really explaning who he is and what on earth he has to do with me. The answer is that he is an online friend of mine and we have worked together on the Best Deals Online. The site has a very wide variety of products, ranging from computers to jewelry. At the moment many are from Amazon.com with special discounts on them but we are constantly introducing new products. As well as working together Garry has helped me get my new site Affiliate Programs up at running. At this point I must mention Jennifer from The life of a School bus driver who suggested BlueHost to me and has generously shared her WordPress wisdom with me, which I am eternally grateful for.

Enough of my thank-yous, Garryconn.com contains a wealth of information about SEO and making money online. He kindly wrote this description of his site for me to post:

"Hello! My name is Garry Conn. I write about successful blogging, Google Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Online marketing tips. I enjoy writing for the purpose of helping new bloggers become successful by giving them the tools they need to take their ideas and dreams and turning them into something real. The articles I publish are designed to give new bloggers and even professional bloggers the resources to make their dreams become a reality.

To be successful blogging you need to be able to create a blog site that is search engine optimized (SEO) for all search engines with heavy priority on Google Search Engine Optimization (GSEO). Luckily for you, I have a natural talent for SEO and I am eager to share what I have learned with you. Successful blogging starts with SEO and Online Marketing. On this site you will find articles that teach you how to optimize your site for search engines. Additionally, you will discover how to be successful with Online Marketing. I will teach you how to get traffic to your site. I will teach you how to get your articles, pages, posts, and publications appear on the top page of the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP and GSERP).

"

As you can see he is very 'to the point', just like his site, so have a look at Garryconn.com and be sure to bookmark it; I have.

6 Things Problogger Doesn't Have

2007-03-17T10:22:00.000Z

If your reading this blog you are probably a reader of Problogger. Being a blogger and not reading Problogger is like trying to play Beethoven’s' Pathetique on the piano, from memory, with out ever hearing it or reading the music. It’s impossible! It is therefore clear that Darren Rowse has great power at his fingertips. He tries to help us with words of wisdom, with his slogan 'helping bloggers earn money' and for all intents and purposes he does. But what doesn't he have on Problgger that he should?

A way to make money directly with Problogger.
There are no products to sell and no affiliate program to join, although he recommends several. Ultimately though Problogger is Darrn Rowse and there are other ways to make money using his sites. Namely Text Link Ads of which he is a co-founder. You can spend money there or you can make money as a publisher or affiliate. So there goes my first idea out the window.

A forum!. Bloggers could discuss the latest Problogger post and Darren could watch over them, occasionally sending a cryptic message from heaven, otherwise known as The House that Google Bought.

sounds like the land of milk and honey doesn't it?
No, sadly not. It doesn’t take much thought that this probably wouldn't work very well. The main reason is that I’m sure Darren is busy enough, without moderating and regularly posting on what would be one of the most popular forums on the net. However, he could always recruit a team of Probloggers to help him do this/do it all for him, which I could see working....

An official Problogger charity!
Rather than The House that Google Bought and I'm a six Figure Blogger, there can be posts about, 'The houses for the homeless that Google bought' and 'six figure African-saving' (if I can say that). I'm not asking Darren to just give all his money to charity, but with so many readers Problogger would be a great place to raise money for charity and raise awareness about certain good causes.

A directory of blogging niches?!
I would go into more detail but this is an idea of mine, which is currently 'in the pipeline'. Believe me it will be more useful than it sounds with what I have in mind! (Darren if your interested I’m sure we can negotiate me telling you everything...i.e. if you ask I will tell you :p).

Tutorials for template/theme alteration/design.
We all know the importance of layout and having and original look to our blogs. What a lot of us don't know (including me) is how to design a brand new template from scratch. However this is such a major task a whole new site would be needed and Darren often says this techie stuff isn't his forte. Anyway, I would love a section on 'theme/template alteration', where there are posts on nifty yet simple things we can to do personalise our blogs. There would need to be posts covering the different types of blogs, i.e. a section for Blogger blogs, Wordpress blogs etc. It’s a pretty big task but I think Darren would be up to it. It is also relevant because the quality of the layout is directly related to earnings potential.

A precise earnings report each month.
Ok so this isn't exactly Darren's style, but actually knowing how much a successful blogger made from what company is a great inspiration to everyone isn't making that much. Just look at JohnChow.com, he has been an inspiration to thousands of us because of is open display of his earnings. (I couldn't exactly write an article about Problogger and blogging for money without mentioning John Chow could I!). I'm not demanding to know about personal finances, but it's just something to think about.

So those are the 6 things Problogger doesn't have, apart from a couple he shouldn’t anyway. Pick which one you think it should have the most and start making unreasonable demands for it to exist. On second thoughts don’t do that, but who is with me on the official Charity idea?!

Week 10 Earnings Report + Rankings

2007-03-16T08:46:00.000Z

Here are the figures for this week. The figures in brackets are the increase since last week; the main figures are cumulative. It is fairly self-explanatory; have a gander!

Mylot: $20.55 (+$0.39)

Adsense: $61.22 (+$6.19)

Text Link Ads: $50 (no change)

Lightspeed Panel Surveys: 1825 points = approximately $42. (No change)

Ciao: £7.96/$15.92 (+$0.58)

Cashcrate: $5.96 and $4.50 pending (+$5.92. From now on I will not include pending payments in the main total.

Treasure Trooper: $0.50 (no change).

SlashmySearch: $2.70 (+$0.01)

Amazon Associates: $16.50 (+$16.50)

Kontera: $1.04 (+$1.04)

Total: $216.39 (+$12.85)

Technorati Rank: 19,851 (-1,289) (remember a ‘ – ‘ is a good thing with rankings!)
Alexa rank: 326,609 (-21,613)

To be frank it was a very 'bad' week, especially given last weeks earnings were $29.35. However, I am not surprised or disappointed. This reflects the time I have spent working on my new site Affiliate Programs, which caused a noticeable drop on traffic for this one. Once everything has calmed down and especially after the impending Google Page Rank update it will all return to the steady progress that was happening in previous weeks.

If you were wondering how progress is going with Affiliate Programs the answer is it is going great. After just 2 posts I have already received a request for me to research a site and give my 'scam or not' conclusion on it. Its gona be big!

SEO Video Tutorial Series - Keywords

2007-03-15T19:11:00.000Z

Today I started doing some preliminary SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) work for my new site Affiliate Programs. I came across a great SEO video series over at Tailored Consulting. When setting up this blog I know I didn't conduct proper keyword research, I 'sort of did some' but not enough. I am determined to get my new site off to the best start possible and that involves doing SEO correctly from the start. The things Brendon says are fairly easy to implement and I will be taking full advantage of his advice. He recommends SEO Book's free keyword research Tool. I used this and managed to come up with a couple of great keyword phrases for my new site. Another great little tool is Overture's Keyword selection tool, which can be used in conjunction with SEO book’s tool.

The rest of the videos in the series will be posted over the next few days and I will be carrying out their advice on my new site, so stay tuned!.

Make Money Online - Affiliate scam Guide

2007-03-14T22:58:00.000Z

Yesterday I unveiled my new site in all its nakedness. I found myself having so much fun setting it all up today that I got a bit carried away and didn't get round to making a 'proper' post on this blog.

I will be trying my hardest not to let this happen very often, because I know you need something to read :p and I do enjoy writing this blog. So why not have a look at AffiliateScamGuide now. It has been updated with tis very first post, a shiney new layout and an About page.

BlueHost Web hosting for $6.95 per month with a free domain name

2007-03-13T18:44:00.000Z

As I mentioned in my last post I have been busy starting up my first ever 'real' site. I can now unveil my new sites address which is http://affiliatescamguide.com and yes, you guessed it; it is going to be a guide to the affiliate program scams that are out there, with a few personal recommendations from me of sites that are not scams.

If you are reading this on the day I wrote this post then the site isn't even up on the net yet, if you are reading this a couple of days after my posting there are probably a few posts on the new site. I am aiming to have it well developed by the end of the month. It would be amazing if I can get Affiliate Scam Guide up to a Google Page of 4 by the next update (which is probably in about 1 months time) but I am doubtful that I can achieve this.

I will start the site by writing a single post for each affiliate program I already support, e.g. CashCrate; and then a post about the programs I know to be scams, or have serious doubts about e.g. Wealthtoolbox.

After that I will be opening the gates to you all who want to know if a site is a scam or not. If you ask me a question about whether a site is a scam, I will conduct some research about that site. If it is free, I will join up myself and have a look around. I will then write a post about the site with my conclusion about where it is a scam or not.

but where did I go for web hosting and what about buying a domain name?
The answer to both those questions is BlueHost. Jennifer from My Life recommended them to me and I am very glad she did! Bluehost provide web hosting and a free domain name for just $6.95 per month providing you sign up for 2 years; which is what I recommend because Google favours sites that have a domain name registered for 2 years or more. (this is because it shows Google you are serious about your site and are going to stick at it for 2 years, which moves you up the rankings bringing you more traffic from Google searches).

You can visit BlueHost and find out about the intricate details of the service rather than me explaining every little thing to you, but before you do I must mention their amazing customer support. I know this sounds like I am just sucking up, but they really were very impressive; allow me to tell the story:

When registering my free domain name with them, I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake. I made a typo without realising it (I did check... but somehow I still missed it). This meant my domain name for a couple of annoying hours was 'affilatescamguide.com' instead of 'affiliatescamguide.com'. When I realised my mistake you can imagine I was kicking myself, because I thought I would have to buy a domain. (you get the first one free, you can get up to 6 on the same account for $20 each for 2 years). I was about to do this when I thought it was worth asking if I could change it for free, after all I hadn’t done anything with it yet. On BlueHost's homepage there is a great big 'LiveChat' button. I clicked on that and it opened a chat window. I asked my embarrassing question and a friendly admin called Tom replied in seconds, solving all my problems. He reset my account for me, and I got the domain name I wanted after all!

Now if that isn't great customer service I don't know what is. A word of advice, don't deliberately misspell your domain name just to see if they really are that nice.

Another important point to make about BlueHost is that the installation of Wordpress is dead easy with them. It takes a few mouse clicks. Once you have an account, log in and at look for 'fantastico auto-installs' beneath the heading 'Addons/plugins'. You then select Wordpress from the list on the left and you are away. I was worried about this, I didn't really understand how domain name + web hosting + Wordpress all fitted together but believe me, one you try it you will be wishing you had done it earlier.

I have one final positive thing to say about BlueHost and that is that they do have an affiliate program. I can assure you though that this has not made my review biased, in fact you will love their affiliate program too. They pay a flat rate of $65 for each person who signs up through your referral link so it's almost worth signing up just to be able to make such lucrative referrals!

So that was my experience with setting up my first ever web hosting, I hope you found it useful. It does look like quite a one sided review, but I honestly cannot find a single thing bad about them. I am interested in what site you used for paid web hosting, so let me know!

If you want to use BlueHost then sign up here.

Successful Online Money Making ! - Blog Updates

2007-03-12T15:14:00.000Z

I have been very busy working on my first 'real' site so forgive me for the lack of major posts. All will return to normal very soon. By the end of the week I hope to have lots to tell you about my new site, which will also help you make money online. You may have noticed a few little changes to this blog, namely that picture of me, which took me far to long to take and add to this site. If you have not got a picture of yourself stuck on your blog then I highly recommend getting one as soon as possible!

That picture has actually opened a lot of doors for me. I have now been able to become an active member of the MyBlogLog Community, which is already producing some traffic and has allowed me to contact bloggers in this niche who were previously unknown to me.

These clever people have already joined my community:

XtremgenX , from
Your blogging guide
ebook4u

Alex, from
Blog About Money Online

and
Rugjeff, from
Rufjeff's Blog About Blogging

You can jump into the community love fest to by Joining my community

Another little addition to this blog is the star rating in the top right. Anyone can rate this blog, you don't need to join any communities or website; just click on how many stars you think Successful Online Money Making ! deserves. You can get your own star 'Star it' here at the click of a button.

The last little addition is the 'bookmark' icon at the bottom of each post. This allows you to bookmark a post in all the major sites in a matter of seconds.

Those are all the updates for now; it won't be long before this blog returns to its traditional 'make money online' topic, so why not bookmark it and come back soon!

Make Money Online Blogs - Links

2007-03-11T10:13:00.000Z

Here are some quick links for you to sink your teeth into. They are from the best and the brightest make money online blogs.

- Internets Adventures series.
This series by Natnit explores exactly what you need to do to get your own domain name and paid web hosting, which is something I am very interested in right now. The posts are actually a couple of weeks old, but they are so useful I just have to link to them.

- 30 Blog Traffic Tips;
Uses the list fromDaniel's Daily blog Tips and add a comment of his own to each one. Again it is an old post but I just discovered it and it's a goldmine of great ideas.

7 Reasons to Quit your Job.
That title speeks for itself!

Your Blog's Got No Friends???.
Shirlene explores the importance of community in the blogosphere.

They are all great posts and full of useful stuff so give them a read!

Google Analytics - Week 9 Overview

2007-03-10T17:00:00.000Z

CLICK ALL IMAGES TO ENLARGE
As you can see, traffic this week has been a little disappointing with out any spikes or major events. Everyone has the occasional 'off week', but the question is:

What can be learnt from this uneventful week?
As usual there are a combination of factors that caused the events/'unevents'. The answer can be found in more wonderful graphs below.

All of the minuses and drops in referrals may look disheartening, but it is important to figure out why traffic has dropped, or at least not grown.

You can see that the greatest drop is from fewer people finding this site via Google using the keyword 'Wealthtoolbox'. A quick Google search of that keyword still reveals that this blog occupies the number 2 and 3 spots; so the cause is not SEO failure. The only possibility is that people have finally caught on to Wealthtoolbox being untrustworthy and so it is less popular, resulting in fewer people searching for it.

The decrease in the number of referral traffic also has a simple explanation. Last week I received a link from JohnChow.com for winning his 'Guess my february blog income' contest which gave me more referral traffic than usual. This week I have simply lost that advantage, sending referral traffic back to usual which gives a negative percentage on the charts.

I have not made any new posts about Wealthtoolbox,, Mylot
or SlashMySeach, which always send a decent amount of traffic. This is because there is simply not much more to say about any of those programs and I would rather focus on more interesting blog topics. Unfortunately it is harder to rank well for more general keywords and so this causes a further decrease in traffic; at least for a while until this blog ranks more highly for more competitive terms.

That’s all for this weeks overview. As I wrote in the Week 9 earnings reportAdSence earnings increased despite the decrease in traffic, so arguably the quality of traffic has been higher.

Week 9 Earnings Report + Rankings

2007-03-10T10:11:00.000Z

Here are the figures for this week, and yes, this post is normally made on a Friday... but I got a little sidetracked... The figures in brackets are the increase since last week; the main figures are cumulative. It is fairly self-explanatory; have a gander!

Mylot: $20.28 (+$0.39)

Adsense: $55.03 (+$11.93)

Text Link Ads: $50 (no change)

Lightspeed Panel Surveys: 1825 points = approximately $42. (No change)

Ciao: £7.73/$15.46 (+$2.12)

Cashcrate: $3.25 pending, $0.08 earned (+$0.08).

Treasure Trooper: $0.50 (no change).

SlashmySearch: $2.69 (+$0.12)

Amazon Associates: $16.50 (+$16.50)

Total: $202.54 (+$29.35)

Technorati Rank: 21,140 (-2,394) (remember a ‘ – ‘ is a good thing with rankings!)
Alexa rank: 348,222 (-162,999)

As usual it was a bit of a mixed week but it is nice to cross the $200 mark. Surprisingly traffic has been down this week (which you will find out later today with the google Analytics Weekly Overview), but AdSense earnings have still increased more than they did last week. I still consider that a loss though, because at this stage it is more important to grow the blogs readership than initial AdSense earnings.

The SlashmySearch earnings are low because they have temporarily lowered the pay rate, but they assured us all via their forum that the normal rates will be returning "really soon".

Now that I'm reaching the top end of the Technorati rankings; moving up them has become harder but the Alexa rank is still increasing substantially.

As usual I must remind you about the impending release of the AGLOCO Viewbar so those earnings will be kicking in soon!

5 Ways to lose blog readers

2007-03-08T17:05:00.000Z

Write too many sponsored posts in too shorter space of time. Sponsored posts are great; bloggers earn a little, the company your writing about gets some attention, the sponsor gets some money (from the company) and the reader has something to read, so why is it dangerous?

It’s simple. Sponsored posts often do not reflect the bloggers real views. This is especially common in new bloggers who do not understand this. They just want the cash regardless of whether they loose some readers because they are overly-flattering in their post. It is especially dangerous if you have not properly researched and spent time using what ever you are reviewing. You should all know by now that you must be careful about what you endorse. Just imagine... your reputation would be left in tatters if an affiliate program you recommended suddenly closed it's doors for no reason and you and your referrals lost all their earnings. Some sites do allow you to write negative reviews, but this is only useful if you are actually going to use the site and find out it's bad points; which you are less likely to do if you are writing a sponsored post every day.
Note - I am including posts about affiliate/referral programs here, because in the long run they are sponsored posts.

Not replying to your blog comments.. Not only will this piss of your readers and make them feel little and insignificant but it’s just plain stupid. There are numerous benefits of replying to your comments.
Benefits
• A comment may be suggesting an improvement you could make to your blog. Even if you carry out their advice, replying makes it more obvious you are open to criticism and makes them feel happy because they have said something useful. This means they are more likely to return to your blog to get more of that feeling!
• First time visitors to your blog often judge it by the number of comments they see (which is a sort of very rough traffic/popularity guide). If you reply to your comments that number will be higher, especially if you spark of a debate. If they see a high number of comments they may request a link exchange, or just become regular readers. It may seem like a small point but it all adds up.
• Some comments are questions. You wouldn’t want your reader (who thinks you know the answer!) to lose faith in you, so answer their questions!
• Some comments are compliments, which we all love. Saying a quick 'thank you' is polite and encourages more compliments to come your way.
• Some comments are spam. Don't reply, delete them.
• Your more knowledgeable readers may disagree with what you have said and spark off a debate. If you don't reply it looks like you are hiding from them. It also shows your expertise if you can come up with arguments to counter what they have said.

By hiding things from them. This is a very broad category and has several possible interpretations.
a) If you are a successful blogger throw a rope down the mountain and help your readers to the top with you. After all, that’s probably how you got to the top.
b) Lying about affiliate programs - this is covered in part 1.
c) Your earnings. This is especially relevant to blogs in this niche. Why pretend to have earned more/less than you really have? I know some people out there are apparently 'offended' by revealing their blogging earnings, but if you are then this probably isn't the niche for you.

I try to be as open as possible about this blogs progress, which I why I make a Weekly earnings report and a Google Analytics Weekly overview.

By making your archives difficult to access. In my opinion this is the single biggest limitation of blogger blogs, (the lack of categories). I have tried to get around this by referring to past articles as a write but there are some that hardly ever get linked to. This is most important for the regular readers of your blog. Most of my 'new visitors' don't arrive to the homepage of this blog, but emerge somewhere in the archives so Google has done a good job of indexing them all.

By cluttering up your site with ads. This is an obvious one, multiple big banner ads are a no-no, and too much AdSense will send your readers in the other direction. There are ways of integrating ads so they don't stand out so much (which also gets you more clicks). For an example of this see my post on Kontera. Banner ads have been 'scientifically' proven to get less click through than Text Link Ads and too many banners on a single pages results in one long loading time for people with slower connections. This is true for all images so don't include too many.

Those are the 5 ways to lose blog readers. There are others of course but hopefully the basics are covered there. Many of them are pure common sense but you would be surprised how many people fall fowl of them. Number 1 is the most prevalent in my opinion, because the authors see it as a sort of 'happy medium' between a site full of ads and a site that provides a service so make sure you spread sponsored posts out.

Kontera - In-Text Advertising at a Glance

2007-03-08T12:20:00.000Z

About 1 week ago I signed up to Kontera (they don't have a referral program don't worry). They provide another method of site monetisation in the form of in-text advertising. They used to only accept high flying sites but recently they opened their gates to us ‘little-uns’. As I write this only a few in-text ad have appeared, but hopefully that will change soon.

I have just glanced back at the Kontera Publisher FAQ and one of the requirements is to "Generate more than 500,000 page impressions per month". This site doesn't get anywhere near that amount of traffic and was still accepted. They can't have just changed the rules because they say they will notify me by email if there are any changes and I have not received an email, so it's probably OK for you to give it a go but don't take my word for it (sorry!).

What is a ContentLink™?
A ContentLink™ is a contextually relevant keyword. ContentLinks™ appear as distinctive links with a unique underline that open a little window containing relevant advertising information. (They are the orange double underlined words).

Details
- Minimum payout is $100 buy check.
- Kontera is currently working in the following countries: USA, Canada and UK. Within the next few months they are planning to launch ContentLink™ in France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
- Don't forget to log on to your account and add the rest of the code (I didn't realise I had to do this and so the first few days I just sat here wondering why it wasn't working).
- You can check out their Kontera Demo here.

So that’s Kontera for you. Hopefully by the end of next week you will be able to see Kontera’s contribution to my weekly earnings.

10 Reasons why Digg.com is Digging it's own Grave

2007-03-07T16:58:00.000Z

1. No matter how many times you blog it, Digg is not a fair democracy. Bigger sites, that already have more visitors and who post a 'Digg' icon after a post will get far more votes than a site of lesser traffic. Their story also carries more weight and people are more likely to vote it up like sheep anyway. It is a popularity contest.

2. People are being banned left right and centre for pedantic little reasons, e.g.DotmySpot.

3. You get next to no benefit of submitting someone else’s article.

4. Traffic is good, but Digg traffic often crashes the site or sends the bandwidth bill through the roof (not on blogger blog as they are free). I am not offering possible solutions, just highlighting the problems.

5. You cannot prevent an article of yours being submitted by someone else. This wouldn’t usually matter, but if you wrote an article a year ago which is now out of date, and someone just submitted it, you would look like a damn fool.

6. There are arguably better sites for the same job - I wont mention examples because I don't want to start a war between them…

7. Digg traffic rarely clicks on ads, and so does not equal advertising dollars.

8. Many of the posts are totally off topic of Digg. This wouldn’t be so bad but some actually make it to the front page!

9. You can't Digg an article without logging in.

10. "Digg may remove any Content and Digg accounts at any time for any reason (including, but not limited to, upon receipt of claims or allegations from third parties or authorities relating to such Content), or for no reason at all." For no reasons at all!? What’s all that about!

Textlink Ads - Proof of Payment

2007-03-06T16:55:00.000Z

CLICK TO ENGLARGE ( I have covered up the addresses)
You may remember that one month ago today I received my first Text link ads payment. I took a photo of the check and stuck it up on here for you all to see. It was for $25 for a 'client' (advertiser) I successfully referred. This morning I received my second check from Text Link Ads, but this time it was $25 for a publisher I referred. So I thought, what they hey, showing you another check won’t hurt and maybe some unbelievers out there will see the light that not everything is 'a scam'.

This blog was rejected by Text Link Ads due to its lack of Google Page Rank, which is just one of the reasons I can't wait for the update (which I'm estimating will be in about 1 month – I’m estimating I will get a PR4/5).

It is pretty obvious that it was worth me signing up despite being rejected for the publisher program. I made $50 by referring just 2 members with their affiliate program and I have developed a very high opinion of Text Link Ads due to their snappy on time payments.

You can do just the same, anyone can join the affiliate program and make money like I did. Of course you won't make as much as you would if you are also accepted by their publisher program (and I wont get anything for referring you if you just become an affiliate! But I would still highly recommend it).

If you are looking at this from the other angle, the advertiser angle then Text Link Ads is defiantly a great choice. You are given a $100 starter coupon, which you can spend on buying TextLinks on the site of your choice! I would do this myself, but I am only using free methods to promote this site and so the advertiser program is not for me. If you are wondering who it is run by, Darren Rowse, the Problogger is a co-founder, (I first heard about it from his blog). So go a head and Join Text Link Ads! (aff link).

The AGLOCO List

2007-03-05T12:40:00.000Z

By now most of my regular readers know I actively support and promote AGLOCO. I have decided to start a Viral marketing campaign to help the average and below average AGLOCO member to get AGLOCO referrals. It does this by giving their blog some linking love and a little extra traffic. You may think, 'why would I want to link to someone else’s AGLOCO blog?, they will just steal my referrals!'. The reason is that this list will help grow the AGLOCO community as a whole. The people who actually look down the list and visit these sites are not going to be potential referrals, but the authors of the blogs, back tracking to find out who linked to them. This will generate an awareness among of other AGLOCO blogs, creating a learning fest as people learn from each others sites about ways to promote AGLOCO. Not to mention that the linking love will help us all in the Search engines.

Rules
- To Continue the AGLOCO list, you must have less than 50 direct referrals. You can have as many indirect referrals as you want have because you have no control over that.
- If you are AGLOCO listed and wish to continue the list, you must find other blogs about AGLOCO (you may already be a reader of them) and add them to the list. (They may only post the list themselves if they have less than 50 direct referrals, if you know they have more than 50, don't add them, this way there will be as few high flyers on the list as possible).
- The blogs you add do not have to be only about AGLOCO. They can include posts on other topics, much like this blog. As long as they have made a few positive posts about AGLOCO feel free to list them, (check that they are not already on the list).
- If you continue The AGLOCO List, you must add the site that listed you to your list.
- You may not add other blogs you author to the list. If you have two blogs on AGLOCO and someone listed the 'lesser one' you may add the better one if you wish and remove the lesser one from your blog post.
- You can still partisipate in The AGLOCO List, even if you are not listed by anyone, you simply add your site providing it fits with the other rules

To continue The AGLOCO list:
1. Copy and past the list of sites below into your blog post.
2. Add any AGLOCO blogs you want to the list, including the blog that listed you (this blog). Remember, the more you add the faster it will spread.
3. That’s it! Sit back and feel the networking love.

AGLOCO Little Guy
The ClubFreedom Blog
BobBuskirk.com
Blog-Op
Blog About Money Online
Making money on the web
How to Earn Money Blogging
The Ultimate Make Money Onling Blog
ADESBLOG.com
My life! - boring but I love it
Dominate AGLOCO
Successful Online Money Making ! (I am adding myself because there is no one to add me first!).

Here is the Text version you can copy and paste straight into your blog post:

<a href="http://aglocolittleguy.blogspot.com/">AGLOCO Little Guy</a>

<a href="http://club-freedom.blogspot.com/">The ClubFreedom Blog</a>

<a href="http://www.bobbuskirk.com">BobBuskirk.com</a>

<a href="http://blog-op.com/">Blog-Op</a>

<a href="http://blogaboutmoneyonline.blogspot.com">Blog
About Money Online</a>

<a href="http://makemoneyonblog.blogspot.com/">Making
money on the web</a>

<a href="http://how2make.blogspot.com">How to Earn Money
Blogging</a>

<a
href="http://the-ultimate-make-money-online-blog.blogspot.com">The
Ultimate Make Money Onling Blog</a>

<a
href="http://www.adesblog.com/">ADESBLOG.com</a>

<a href="http://ladylike4.com/">My life! - boring but I
love it</a>

<a href="http://www.dominateagloco.com/">Dominate
AGLOCO</a>

<a href="http://matt608.blogspot.com">Successful Online
Money Making !</a>

CashCrate - A Scam?

2007-03-04T09:31:00.000Z

Update: Since writing this I have now made over $400 with CashCrate! Come and see proof of my cashcrate earnings at my new blog here: CashCrate proof of payment.

I have been a member of CashCrate for a while now, but I have had little success with them because they have far fewer offers for non-USA/Canada residents. I had actually half given up on them, but they recently made these interesting updates:

The more referrals you get, the higher % they payout.

Bronze - 0 Active Referrals - 20% First Level, 10% Second Level
Silver - 50 Active Referrals - 25% First Level, 10% Second Level
Gold - 150 Active Referrals - 25% First Level, 15% Second Level
Platinum - 300 Active Referrals - 30% First Level, 15% Second Level
Elite - 500 Active Referrals - 30% First Level, 20% Second Level

These are locked-in levels, once you reach them there's no way back
down.

Point System
For each $1 you earn in completed offers, you will earn a point. You
also get points for doing "Point Offers". These are then exchangeable for
awesome prizes at the prize shop!

Offer "Rating" System
The way offers are rated has changed from 1-5. The offers are now rated
using a complicated mathematical formula which will bring the greatest
approving offers to the top. This will also help weed out poorly
approving offers.

As well, you can now sort by "Free Offers" and "Trial Offers". Free
Offers are those that do not require a credit card whereas Trial Offers
are the higher paying ones that do.

Daily Surveys
For a few minutes each day you can complete a $0.80 Daily Survey. These
will not confirm instantly as they approve all offers once per day for
the ones done before that.

Along with those they have added a few other smaller features, such as
making it easier to submit and remove offers and overall improving the
CashCrate experience.

As well as that, this contest was announced by the CashCrate Admins a couple of days ago:

- Win a 30GB iPod Video! The user who gains the most active referrals
(users who complete atleast one offer) during the month of March will be
awarded with a shiny, brand new 30GB iPod Video. This can hold up to
7,500 songs!

- The user who refers the second most active users will win $50, third
will win $25 and the next 10 users will each win $10.

- As well, whoever completes the most $ worth of offers will receive a
$50 bonus!

It looks like CashCrate is finally getting it's act together. They have a shiny new layout which makes them look much more trustworthy than before. So if you have been thinking about joining, now is the time to join CashCrate, and get referring to win that ipod!

Google Analytics - Week 8 Overview

2007-03-03T13:34:00.000Z

One week ago today I made the first Google Analytics Weekly Overview. During that week, the point of interested was SlashMySearch. This week has been busy as well, so keep reading to find out about this blog’s growth.
CLICK ALL IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Here is my traffic for the week. You can see it has increased nicely as the week went on, despite a little 'blip' in the middle. Buy what is the explanation for this relatively steady increase?

Well, this chart offers part of the explanation. The noticeable difference between this chart of referring sources and the usual one is the appearance of JohnChow.com. It has leapt onto the listings snatching third place provided 64 visits over just a couple of days. The reason for this was my winning of his 'Guess my income' contest, which got me a link from one of his blog posts.

SlashMySearch.com has provided me with 34 visits, which I acquired by posting in their forum and having this sites address in my signature. This was doubly good because I was earning real money while reading and posting in those forums. The same thing can happen for your site so join SlashMySearch here.

Just a quick word about Earners blog who are running a John Chow style 'review my blog and get a free linkback'. I though it would be worth a shot, and it was just about, with my review of Earners blog getting me 12 referrals.

I am also very thankful towards Million Dollar Journey and Making Money on the Web, which sent some traffic my way.

This chart reveals the other reason for my steady increase in traffic. It shows more impressive figures about SlashMySearch and how my two posts about it, SlashMySearch a trial run and SlayMySearch - In depth review and proof of payment have brought me significant amounts of traffic, (91 visitors). It is interesting to see that a lot of these top 10 posts are newer ones, so perhaps that indicates an increase in quality for readers and SEO of my posts.

That’s all for this week overview,

Coming up
- Brand new Cashcrate info.

so Stay tuned.

Goals for March

2007-03-02T12:00:00.000Z

Remember these aims for February?:

- "Provide a blog that people actually find useful and isn't just me displaying my knowledge."
This is the biggie, it is an on-going process but I would say I have done quite well with this (well I hope I have, I have no way of telling for sure).

- "Increase traffic to 300 visitors a day if I make one post per day."
I have failed; I have increased traffic to a high point of 256 page views in a day, yet alone unique visitors.

- "Get into the Technorati top 100,000 (at the moment I’m ranked about 170,00)."
I achieved this ages ago, I'm now ranked 23,534.

- "Get Dugg once (achieving this would basically mean I achieve my other aims)" .
I failed, but then to be honest I haven’t really been trying to get Dugg.

- "Get 100 people in my AGLOCO network (at the moment I have 25)".
I failed- I have 40 people now in my AGLOCO network.

- "Get to Level 7 on Bestcashrewards (at the moment I am on Level 3)".
I failed, but only because they have been 'restoring the member pages' for weeks, preventing me from getting any referrals.

So again a mixed month, but in my opinion a lot of those goals showed my naivety and were over-optimistic. I am very happy with the progress this blog has made and I see little point in making goals like this for another month. I am obviously going to try to achieve all of the failed aims from last month, and continue developing this blog. I'm expecting a Google PageRank update in about a month (because they do them every 3 months or so), which will make things really get interesting.

Week 8 Earnings Report + Rankings

2007-03-02T10:47:00.000Z

Here are the figures for this week. The figures in brackets are the increase since last week, the main figures are cumulative. It is fairly self-explanatory; have a gander!

Mylot: $19.89 (+$0.47)

AdSense: $41.64 (+$10.05)

Text Link Ads: $50 (no change)

Lightspeed Panel Surveys: 1825 points = approximately $32. (No change, apart from a bonus $10HMV voucher :D)

Ciao: £6.67/$13.34 (+$1.24)

Cashcrate: $3.25 (no change)

Treasure Trooper: $0.50 (no change).

SlashmySearch: $2.57 (+$1.45)

Total: $173.19 (+$23.19)

Technorati Rank: 23,534 (-8,786) (remember a ‘ – ‘ is a good thing with rankings!)
Alexa rank: 511,221 (-49,347)

So, over all, a bit of a mixed week. The main improvement has been AdSense earnings, which last week were not even on an average of over $1 a day. This is actually a double since last week, which happened because of a double in traffic. I will go into this in more detail tomorrow with my second Google Analytics Weekly Overview.

The "bonus $10HMV voucher" from Lightspeed Panel Surveys was not officially a bonus, but more of a surprise. I have been a member of Lightspeed Panel Surveys since before they started their current points system and the HMV voucher was something I 'earned' before they made the switch. It hasn't arrived yet but why would they send me an email reminding me about it if they weren’t going to send it?

Also, don't let the low increase in Mylot earnings fool you, Mylot has been a substantial source of traffic for this blog and a great promotional tool for getting referrals, namely for SlashMySearch, where I got 8 referrals over nigh from a single post on Mylot. Almost all of the SlashmySearch earnings are from my referrals, so I don't consider that a loss either. There is a lot more to say about this, all of which will be said tomorrow, so stay tuned!.

P.S. The AGLOCO Viewbar is scheduled to be out later this month, so those earnings will be kicking in soon!

ReviewMe Launches an affiliate program

2007-03-01T14:10:00.000Z

Just a quick post to inform you that ReviewMe! has launched an affiliate program.

"Get $25.00 for every new advertiser you refer to ReviewMe who purchases a review that makes it to completion!"

Its a little disappointing that you don't get paid for referring publishers, like you do with Text Link Ads, but hey, that’s life. You can get a get a custom affiliate badge to use on your site if you want. So get referring!

Advertisers
- Get your Web site's products or services reviewed by related Web sites, and benefit from valuable exposure, feedback, and viral buzz.
- ReviewMe recently had a 50% off deal, chances are they will have one again!
- The ReviewMe! database only contains sites that are at least page rank 4 and that get a certain amount of traffic (you pick the site!).

Sign up to ReviewMe!

Google Alerts - A Cure for 'Blogger's block'

2007-03-01T12:23:00.000Z

It was over a month ago that I last wrote about Google Alerts, but don't let this fool you, using Google alerts is a great backup for finding content and cure for 'bloggers block'. If you are unsure of what Google Alerts are then have a quick read of that post before you continue with this one.

What is bloggers block?
Bloggers block is just like a writers block, where you just cannot come up with something creative to blog about. Many people tend to get bloggers block when they just start their first blog and simply don't know where to begin. I have had a few questions from readers of this blog asking things like 'how do you find something to write about?', which I shall now endeavour to answer.

1. By reading blogs that are in the same niche.

Positives
- A potentially infinite (well not infinite but you get the idea) number of blogs can be read, so lots of information can be gathered + 'meditated upon'.
- Visiting the blog yourself presents the opportunity of commenting and 'networking' and possibly building the foundations of a relationship with that blogger. - Kills two birds with one stone.
- Gives practice surfing the blogosphere. By using the search engines we can gain an idea as to what sort of sites have done well with SEO (search engine optimisation), which we can learn from. This is a bit of a loose point but you can't have a hope of implementing successful SEO with out being an experienced search engine user yourself! (most of us already are anyway...)

Negatives
- Time consuming.
- Can yield few poor results if you don't know where to look.

2. By using Google Alerts!

Positives
- Quick, easy and free.
- You can choose how often you want to be sent an alert, so potentially can provide infinite ideas.

Negatives
- Makes networking a bit less appealing, because you didn't find the site yourself and have not had a rummage around on it to find what you are looking for. I.e. you don't have an idea of the blogs popularity and so cannot judge how to word your comments accordingly. (Does that make sense?)
- Some alerts are a 'mismatch' and are completely off topic.
- No experienced gained for searching the blogosphere.
- Posts made using Google Alerts can seem unconnected; despite being on the same niche you will have fewer opportunities to refer to a previous post.
- Can clog up your inbox if you find yourself not using them after signing up

Conclusion
Google Alerts are a great backup, but should not be relied upon. I personally have only fallen back on them a couple of times for content, and both times I have ended up writing about Google Alerts, rather than any of the actual alerts! lol... Put into a single sentence, only use them if you don't have time to browse other blogs yourself., which should be a rare event if you are going to be a successful blogger.

Vizu Poll Madness!

2007-02-28T17:30:00.000Z

You may have noticed the poll I have added to this blog. Polls are a great way to make your site 'sticky', or interactive with the readers. Some of the voters may be interested in finding out the result of the poll and so may come back later, or they may just have a vague recollection of the site being more interesting, increasing the chances of their return. The poll I have made however is not a Vizu answerspoll, but a free poll I made over at Pollverise.com, which by the way are really easy to create.

So What is Vizu answers and what does it have to do with anything??
- Vizu answers provide your site with polls
- You earn per 1000 page impressions (CPM)
- You can customise the poll's colours and layout to suit your site
- The Polls are 'targeted' to your sites topic - but are not contextual so they can be used with AdSense
- You don't have to meet any 'entry requirements'.

So why am I not using a Visu poll right now?
The simple answer is that I want to, but can't... and I wasn't 'rejected' either. I signed up about a week ago, but today they replied with this email:

"Due to the rapid growth of our distribution network, we have arrived at the point where supply has started to exceeded demand. Since the current research is being spread across a larger number of sites, your Poll Zone fill rates may be temporarily lower than average. As a remedy to this problem, we have implemented a wait list (approval process) for all new incoming publishers to ensure that we increase the network size at a rate commensurate with the growth in Client revenue."

So I guess I am on that waiting list. Be careful not to take this email the wrong way, they are not 'scamming' me or anything, I really do trust this company because a couple of other bloggers I 'network with' and read e.g. DotmySpot and DoshDosh have had some success with Vizu.

The email also had a 'feedback' section, which also took the form of a poll!! LOL! They are poll mad!

I will be making a brief weekly post (every Wednesday) about the results of the poll; that is until the Visu polls arrive and I have no way of knowing if a post about them will be appropriate. So Stay tuned!.

Alternatives to Wealthtoolbox

2007-02-27T18:03:00.002Z

You could tell from my Google Analytics Weekly Overview that 'Wealthtoolbox' and 'Wealthtoolbox scam' are my two top keywords people type into Google to find this site. It is a great shame that Wealthtoolbox is not a program that I support or I would have a zillion referrals in just a few days. I have made this brief list of alternatives to Wealthtoolbox for all those of you who found this site via that keyword and were disappointed by My negative review of it.

The sites listed are all money making sites that I trust. They are not HYIP's (high yield investment programs) like Wealthtoolbox is because I simply don’t trust any HYIP's; instead they are other ways of making money online, all of which are FREE .

1. Mylot.
Basic overview
You get paid for posting and taking part on the forum.

Detailed overview
You get paid on Mylot for:

1. Starting discussions (the more replies you get the more you earn, so its in your interests to make them interesting – this makes Mylot a great community to be a part of!)
2. Replying to other peoples discussions (you get more if you do a more in depth post - about 4 lines or more)
3. Uploading relevant images to your replies and/or discussions
4. Uploading images to your interests (you get more if you write about them)
5. Getting referrals (you get to keep 25% of your referrals earnings - they do not lose anything)

Note: you do not get paid for replying to discussions you have started, but you should still do this as it can help to keep the discussion going and will make you a more respected member.
Join Mylot.

2. SlashMySearch
Basic overview
- Get paid to brows the web with the SlashMySearch search engine.
- Earn from 65% of your referrals earnings

For a Detailed overview see my indepth review and proof of payment.

3. AGLOCO.
Basic Overview
- Get paid to browse the web using the 3. AGLOCO custom Toolbar.
- Make lots of money when AGLOCO goes on the stock market at the end of the year.
- Earn from your referrals

For a detailed overview see this post about AGLOCO.

4. Text Link Ads For webmasters/bloggers only
Basic overview
- Get paid to publish Textlinkads on your site.
- Advertise on other people’s sites, there is a free £100 starter coupon.

Beginner Tips for SEO

2007-02-27T17:06:00.000Z

This is a really useful Network Solutions video I found earlier today for those of you who are just getting started on your site and need some pointers about SEO (search engine optimisation). The first 30 seconds are just introduction so you can just skip past that onto the good stuff. The three essential points made are:

- Good Content
- Links to your site
- Title tags and meta tags

They are the basic things that all sites need, in order to get organic traffic from search engines. So have a watch of the video and learn something new! Or for those veterans out there it’s a nice refresher.

John Chow has 6000 AGLOCO referrals!

2007-02-26T15:39:00.000Z

CLICK TO ENLARGE MY AGLOCO NETWORK
As you may know I have been following John Chow's AGLOCO Success. I am going to have to stop making these posting when ever he gets 'another 1000' referrals because they are getting too frequent! To see what I mean then check out John Chow - 1000 AGLOCO signups in 10 Days!

Anyway as usual John Chow as usual couldn't resist doing just a bit more AGLOCO promotion. He announced this personal landmark earlier today. This is what he had to say:

"My experience with AGLOCO comes from AllAdvantage. I’m not sure if you were around the first time, but AllAdvantage was the first AGLOCO. Created during the first dot com boom, AllAdvantage raised over $100 million in venture capital and it basically paid all of it to the members who ran the Viewbar. I think that was the first time in corporate history when the venture capitalists lost and the little guy (Viewbar users) won. AllAdvantage went down with the Dot Com crash. However, while it was up, I made over $25,000 from it."

John Chow is a surviving a veteran from a 'battle' about AllAdvantage, which raged so long ago that most people have forgotten about it. It is therefore my duty to remind you that he wonand I am glad to have him on my side. Compared to the 'mere' 40 people I have in my AGLOCO downline, he will make a lot more money than me, but all is not lost:

"Look at it this way. You can sit by the sideline and do nothing, and gain nothing. You can join AGLOCO, just run the Viewbar, and not promote it. Still won’t cost you anything and you’ll make a few bucks. You can take a chance and promote it, built a network, maybe luck out and sign up some guy like me who runs with it (McCall signed up just 110 people but those people went to sign up 17,000 more).

If AGLOCO fails, what have you lost in terms of time or money? If it hits big, what have you lost by standing on the sideline? AllAdvantage failed, but I still made $25,000 in the process. AGLOCO may fail or AGLOCO maybe the next YouTube. I don’t know. All I do know is the risk to reward ratio is so great, I can’t pass it up and neither should you."

I commend John’s persuasive writing style, which has clearly put to good use. Of course the credibility of his name has a lot to do with his success as well, but nevertheless he is an inspiration to us all (well at least to me he is!). You can
Join my AGLOCO network here

SlashMySearch - Indepth Review + Proof of Payment

2007-02-25T10:51:00.000Z

*You can click on all images to enlarge them*
You may remember a few days ago I made a post called SlashMySearch - A Trial Run. I gave a fairly balanced picture of SlashMySearch, if not a slightly negative one. At that point I was very new to the program and I have found out the answers to a lot of the 'I thinks'. I can now cancel out some of the negatives that were on the list, but it is not all sunshine and rich nerds...Much of this post won't make much sense unless you take a quick read of the afore mentioned post, so if you haven’t read it already then why don't you go and read it now.

OK, so:

Remaining Negatives
- The search engine still isn't up to scratch
- My little trick of searching for Google and then using it to search only counts as a single search and so only earns a few cents. The same is with the Mylot trick.
- The minimum payout is $50 and you have to wait two months until they pay you. (The biggest bummer in my opinion).

Surprisingly the positives still remain:
- The earning system does mean you make money for minimal effort.
- You get paid to surf via their search engine
- You get paid to read + post in their forum.
- You get paid a large portion (about 65%) of your referrals earnings.
- The community is growing, the viral 'excitement' seems to be just taking a grip, which means they will have more money from advertising revenues to share with us.

The new positive I have found is this proof of payment that has been circulating the net. You can see this is the Screen shot above. Of course this is not 100% proof, because I’m sure the numbers could be changed if you really wanted to change them, but it's good enough for me for now. I have also tested the referral program and found it to be most effective for two reasons:

1. It is very easy to get referrals, because the market is not saturated by SlashMySearch, unlike with programs like AGLOCO where everyone has already made up their mind about signing up. My proof of this is in the screen shot below, which shows my current SlashMySearch downline, which formed in just two days! I actually made 8 referrals over night from a single post on Mylot which was quite exiting when I woke up lol.

2. The referrals tend to be active. The easiest way to tell this is to go to bed, wake up and find a shiny extra dollar sitting in your account... which I did. The evidence for my referrals activity is shown in the screen shot below:

The SlashMySearch team assure us that they are working on the search engine to fix the bugs and get it sorted out as soon as possible, I do believe them but how soon is 'as soon as possible'? That’s up to you to decide. I also had a read through the TOS and found this:

"If under any circumstance SlashMySearch.com becomes bankrupt, an advertising account does not pay on time or any other accounts receivables problems comes up, payment may be delayed or under extreme circumstances, skipped. If bankruptcy occurs, all outstanding payments will be void and null and this program is automatically terminated."

This is a little worrying, but if you think about it it's pretty expectable, they are a young program and still in beta development. Reading this caused me to trust their intentions more (i.e. I doubt they are out to scam us) but I lost a little faith in their ability. I'm going to give SlashMySearch a chance. After all, it's not very fair if I only support more developed programs like AGLOCO and leave out the 'little guy', if SlashMySearch count as little. Click here to join what I'm now thinking is an exiting new program.

Google Analytics - Week 7 Overview

2007-02-24T11:53:00.000Z

I previously promised to show you all how much traffic this site gets, and where it gets it from. I will do this every week, in the form of a Google Analytics Overview. I will do this by going through Google Analytics and picking out the most important graphs/charts and explaining them to you. The plan is, that I will become proud of these reports because they will be a way of boasting about all the traffic I get, which at the moment is not the case.... So why am I doing it so soon?

Because you love it!. I would love to see the traffic stats for the blogs I read, it would be fascinating and I am guessing you are the same. I also hope that it will catch on and I will be able to see the traffic stats of the blogs I read, not to mention that it helps me unravel things in my mind.

So lets get going!

You can click all the images to enlarge them.

This graph is of my traffic for the week. The Blue line is the number of unique visitors. You can see it hovers around the 100 mark for most of the week, starting at its lowest of 89 and moving on up to 157. I am obviously very happy with this increase, although I do not think it will last. I would say that my weakest post all week has been the one on the Text Link Ads Calculator. However that post was on Tuesday, not Wednesday, (when the traffic dropped). Perhaps it took a day to get listed by the search engines, who knows…

Wednesday had the post called Article Marketing is a Waste of Time? which I though was quite good (lol). Anyway, the internet does have its 'off days' when there is just less traffic due to chance... I may not know the reason for the decrease in traffic midweek, but I do know the cause of the increase. Read on to find out...

This is where it gets interesting. This screen shot shows the top 10 referring sources for this blog. What I first noticed when I saw this is that it is very different from usual and can be used to explain the sudden bloom in traffic over the last couple of days. Firstly, I normally only get a couple of referrals from Dotmyspot but this week I am in the featured sites list, which brought me more, so thanks Michael!

Secondly, Mylot referrals are much higher that usual, this is because I have been doing more posting there than usual to promote this blog and also SlashMySearch (as part of my experiment with it, which proved very effective, getting me 8 referrals over night :D). While messing around on the SlashMySearch forum, I did a little blog promotion, which as you can see got me 10 referrals. This leads me on nicely to the next chart...

This shows the content that has attracted the most visitors. Everything is pretty much as usual, apart from No.4. Can you guess what it is? Yes it's the SlashMySearch post! It all fits together!

So:

1. I discovered SlashMySearch and wrote a post about it, which was popular in the search engines because its a new program and there is very little competition, which brought me some traffic.
2. I promoted it in Mylot, which got me some traffic (and signups).
3. I also did more networking this week that usual. I actively commented on the blogs I read, many of the authors returned the favour or at least came for a visit.
4. The Z list has helped boost my Technorati ranking, bringing me slightly more traffic from there.
5. I am in the Dotmyspot featured blogs list, bring more traffic.
6. My earnings report was popular, people like to hear the grit and know the details.

Isn't it weird how it all fits together?

To end I will throw in this chart of my new vs. returning visitors.

This shows the balance I have. Returning visors read more and more actively participate, but first timers probably click more ads. I have happy with this ratio, the fairly large number of returning visitors shows I am not writing a load of crap, and the new ones show my SEO is going well.

I am interested to know your feedback on all this. Would you like a post like this every week? Or maybe every other week? It’s all done For you!

Week 7 Earnings Report + Rankings

2007-02-23T10:50:00.000Z

A while back I said I would be switching to weekly earnings reports from monthly ones (which just take too long to wait for). You can see my January Earnings Report here.

So here is the first weekly earnings report, which is at week 7. The figures in brackets are the increase since the last earnings report, which in this case was 3 weeks ago. The main figures are cumulative for the 7 weeks.

Mylot: $19.42 (+$0.57).

Adsense: $31.51 (+$17.01).

Text Link Ads: $50 (+$25).

Lightspeed Panel Surveys: 1825 points = approximately $32.

Ciao: £6.10/ $12.20 (+$1.20).

Cashcrate: $3.25 (+$0.45).

Treasure Trooper: $0.50 (+$0.00).

SlashmySearch: $1.12 (+$1.12).

Total Exactly $150

Technorati Rank: 32,320
Alexa Traffic Rank: 560,568

A word about Mylot. Don't be deceived by the low earnings. I have been using it for getting referrals for other programs, namely SlashmySearch, which I am still experimenting with. And with the Lightspeed Panlel Surveys, that $32 is not all from the 3 weeks, I missed it out by accident before so I don't know how much I had earned at the end of January.

It is quite surprising that Text Link Ads is the largest earner, especially because I was rejected from their publisher program for not having a Google Page Rank. Those earnings are just from their afffiliate program! I received the first $25 from them a few weeks ago and you can view My proof of Payment here.

Also, don't forget about other things like AGLOCO and Bestcashrewards. Bestcashrewards is currently undergoing some maintenance so you will have to wait until its fixed before you sign up :p. Nevertheless, once the AGLOCO Viewbar is released the earnings will start to arrive, although most of the earnings will be from the stock market when AGLOCO floats on it at the end of the year. You can see my post about John Chow getting 1000 ALGOCO signups in 10 days which has info about my predicted earnings from AGLOCO.

Tomorrow there will be the first Google Analytics Weekly Overview, where you will be lucky enough to find out how much traffic this site gets and where it gets it from.

SlashMySearch - A Trial run

2007-02-22T14:14:00.000Z

CLICK TO ENLARGE
One of the latest referral schemes circulating the net is SlashMySeach. I heard about it a couple of times before I joined and I aim to give to give it a fair review. Fair reviews are important for a blogger because they maintain trust

Allow me to explain. Imagine if I referred you to a program that ended up being a 'scam' of some sort, I would have lost your trust and your readership. I also would have wasted all the time I spent writing the article that referred you. So you can see it's in my interest to tell the truth.

Anyway, I signed up to SlashMySeach yesterday and I have had a little time to experiment with it. (I will give you the full review in a few days when I have spent more time on it). So far there are some good and bad things about it which I will briefly outline.

Positives
- The earning system does means you make money for minimal effort.
- You get paid to surf via their search engine
- You get paid to read + post in their forum.
- You get paid a large portion (about 65%) of your referrals earnings.
- The community is growing, the viral 'excitement' seems to be just taking a grip, which means they will have more money from advertising revenues to share with us.

Negatives
- The Search Engine is terrible. Many searches come up with 0 results. They claim that this is a bug, which is currently being dealt with but only time will tell. I also have a sneaky way to get around this but I am unsure if it earns at the same rate. Basically, if you type in 'Google' in the SlashMySearch bar, you can then use the main Google search while still on the SlashMySearch site, which I think means you are still earning.
- You can do a similar thing with other sites. e.g. If you search for 'Mylot, you can go about your Mylot posting as usual, while still on SlashMySearch, which I think means you are still earning. You can see me doing this in the screen shot.
- Once you have earned the minimum payout ($50) you have to wait 2 months till you can receive it!

So at the moment I think its quite an even battle. I will find out all the answers to the I think's and get back to you with a full review in a few days. In the meantime why not join the 'Mylot forum, which has a payment program 'we' all trust.

Article Marketing is a Waste of Time?

2007-02-21T16:58:00.000Z

CLICK TO ENLARGE
In previos posts I have made about blogging for money, a recurring tip has been to 'submit your articles/best posts to article directories such as ezine articles and Go Articles. I have been doing this for a while and I am now officially an 'expert ezine author', which means I can keep submitting for free. I have submitted a good 10 articles to both those directories, but do I have the results to show for it?

yes and no

Positive results
- I have received 2 inbound links from people using my articles and referring to me. (2 people have re-posted them their blog).
- I have received a small amount of traffic from people reading my articles (the screen shot is of one of my submitted articles which has been viewed 65 times, some of that traffic will have filtered down to this blog)
- I have spread my name and gained a small (very small) standing as an author.

Negative results
- I have only received 2 inbound links, by submitting over 20 articles which I laboured over like a dog (although I do enjoy writing them).
- The traffic received was very small given how long it took to write those articles.
- I now have duplicate content which the search engines don't like, and to make things worse it's a duplicate of my very best content.
- The sites that re-posted my articles were rubbish and had no authority or original content.
- isnare still have not approved any of my articles, and they say it could take up to 6months unless I pay (which I’m not going to).

So there is a bit of a mixed message there, over all a negative one. I don't really know what I expected. If you think about it, none of the top sites, or even half decent sites got to where they are by re-posting free ezine articles. All that’s going to happen at best, is I would get a whole pile of links from crap sites. Maybe I will have more luck in the future, although I doubt it.

I am eager to know of your experience with article marketing, so do comment if you have any article sites that have worked well for you, or if you agree with me and think its not really worth it.

Text link Ads Calculator

2007-02-20T18:41:00.000Z

CLICK TO ENLARGE
As you may or may not know, this blog doesn't have a pagerank, (what’s the point in trying to hind it?). It should be getting a PR 4 or 5 at the next update which will enable me to make money as a publisher with Text Link Ads. I have been clicking around trying to find out how much I will be able to earn (call me sad) and I stumbled upon the Text Link Ads calculator. This is a simple tool that allows you to work out what you will be able to earn and how many links it would be best to sell etc. If you take a look its quite self-explanatory.

As you can see in the screen shot, if I were to sell a single link for a month on the top right region; right now with the blog in its current state it would go for $10. This confused me a little, because if you look to the right of this post you will see a link saying 'advertise here for just $3 a month', yet no one has bought that link (that is an advolcano link).

So what is going on?
- Either Text Link Ads are getting my hopes up just to knock me down and a link on my site isn't really worth $10 a month.
- Or people don't realise the value of a link on this site and are missing out on a great deal to buy one for $3 (my favourite option :p).
- Or people haven’t even noticed that link because it’s dwarfed by the Spicypage’s 'vote-o-matic'.

Anyway, all of that is irrelevant unless you want to buy a link, but anyone can make money with Text Link Ads even if they are rejected by the publisher program (like I was). You get paid $25 for each referral you make who is accepted by the publisher program or buys a link as an advertiser. I made received my first check from Text Link Ads in January and you can check out my proof of payment in case you think I’m yanking your chain.

Stay Tuned for my First Google Analytics Weekly Overview and my First Weekly Earnings Report (I am shifting from monthly reports).

The Z List

2007-02-19T15:27:00.001Z

What is the Z list?
Mack Collier from The Viral Garden started the Z list in December 2006, he had this to say about it

"I've visited countless blogs for the first time because of the Z-List, and left numerous comments on blogs and to bloggers that I had never previously heard of. On one of the blogs, someone left a comment in response to the Z-List saying something like 'This is just a way to get links'. I added that if that was all you wanted from the Z-List, that would likely be all you would get.

And the Z-List does give everyone on it a buncha links. But as we can tell... it also gives community. Bloggers that had likely never heard of each other a few weeks ago, now share a sense of ownership in something bigger than themselves, and want to see that creation grow and thrive."

I was Z listed on my 18th Birthday (6th Feb!) on How to Earn Money blogging. I was thankful, but I had by doubts about the Z list and so I didn't actively participate. I had also read a of a few bloggers who disapproved of the Z list, because it 'undermines the Technoratri rankings' which are based on the number and authority of inbound links. I admit, I sort of agreed with them, so I just let it go; but then the links started to flood in. I moved from the Technorati rank of 120,000 to 44,000 in the space of a couple of weeks. I thought ‘I can't keep taking credit for this’, because I did nothing to deserve it. Maki, over at Dosh Dosh provided me with some conscience soothing arguments and showed me I had been looking at it all the wrong way. I hope it has the same effect on you:

"I do however, think that the main motivation you should have for this exercise is generosity. You’re trying to share the blogs you find interesting with other bloggers and you’re not primarily linking out to get links back, even though this will be a natural result of participating in the meme.

Note that by linking out, you’ll also alert other bloggers and their readers to your blog’s presence which will lead to more exposure for your blog and possibly, even more readers.

The Z list is initially an exercise to promote blogs outside of any veritable link-based ranking system and is a great way to gain exposure, traffic and readers for blogs that should be read but are not. The explosion in backlinks and increase in future Page Rank should be a side benefit and not the main focus."

So, other than those 'community love creating' reasons, what are the precise benefits of posting the Z list on your blog?

- New incoming links from other blogs
- Increase Technorati ranking
- Open your blog to a new pool of readers and possible subscribers
- Increase chance to gain higher Google pagerank
- Discovering new and interesting Blogs
- Make new friends and network
- Lots of appreciative bloggers

Heres how to participate:

1. Create a new post on your blog.
2. Copy and Paste the entire list of blog links below
3. Add any blogs that you want to include near the top of the list. (This isn’t compulsory, so you can either add as many blogs as you want or none at all.)
4. Include the blog where you first got the list from, on the list in your post.
5. Do not include your own blog links on the list in your post.
6. Make sure that all links point to each blog’s homepage.
7. Publish the Post.

My Z-list Blogs:
How to Make Money Blogging - blog of origin
DotmySpot
Rugreff's Blog about Blogging
Million Dollar Journey
Quest to Make money on the Internet

Z-List at How to Make Money Blogging
Make Money On The Net
Dosh Dosh
Money Money Money
Money Making Quest
Connected Internet
Blog-Op
Mike's Money Making Mission
Time to Budget
Can I Make Big Money Online
Blogtrepreneur
Flee the Cube
Blogging Secret
Blogging to Fame
Million Dollar Experiment heads Down Under
Quest to make money on the internet
Kumiko's Cash Quest
Calico Monkey
Internet Bazaar
Shotgun Marketing Blog
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim
Pow! Right Between The Eyes!
Billions With Zero Knowledge
Working at Home on the Internet
MapleLeaf 2.0
Two Hat Marketing
darrenbarefoot.com
The Emerging Brand
The Branding Blog
CrapHammer
Drew's Marketing Minute
Golden Practices
Viaspire
Tell Ten Friends
Flooring the Consumer
Kinetic Ideas
Unconventional Thinking
Buzzoodle
NewsPaperGrl
The Copywriting Maven
Hee-Haw Marketing
Scott Burkett's Pothole on the Infobahn
Multi-Cult Classics
Logic + Emotion
Branding & Marketing
Popcorn n Roses
On Influence & Automation
Bullshitobserver
Servant of Chaos
converstations
eSoup
Presentation Zen
Dmitry Linkov
aialone
John Wagner
Nick Rice
CKs Blog
Design Sojourn
Frozen Puck
The Sartorialist
Small Surfaces
Africa Unchained
Perspective
gDiapers
Marketing Nirvana
Bob Sutton
¡Hola! Oi! Hi!
Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid!
Women, Art, Life: Weaving It All Together
Community Guy
Social Media on the fly

McCall has over 16,000 AGLOCO referrals!

2007-02-18T19:08:00.000Z

CLICK TO ENLARGE
I have been covering the progress of John Chow's AGLOCO success but I have skipped over the progress of the number 1 referrer, RZ McCall. As you can see he has over 16,000 referrals, which will no doubt make him a millionaire. In his blog he explains how you can get 16,000 referrals in 90 days. This is what he says:

"This week get 10 friends (I know that you have more than ten people you know that the AGLOCO Revolution is right for). AND most importantly convince them to each get 10 referrals the next week (and check in with them to ‘help’ them get their ten - and it will quickly multipy). Tell them they are causing the revolution. Yes, you and they could end up making lots of money too. But for me, I did not join AGLOCO for the money and I do not write this blog for it either."

As much as I would love to believe he didn't join AGLOCO for the money, he does give some good advice, which clearly works given his success. He also thinks that the time to join AGLOCO is now:

"Why do I think that? I think this is a great time to join, because the AGLOCO membership is now growing at a geometric pace. (More people will join AGLOCO this week than last week and next week will be higher again.) This means AGLOCO will grow to hit a “tipping point” – that is the point at which there is a ‘mad dash’ to sign up and to sign up everyone in the world…. (OK – maybe “everyone in the world” was too high, but you get the picture.)"

Personally I agree with him (obviously), its free to join, so why not join my AGLOCO network.

Hit Tail - A disheartening Reminder

2007-02-18T15:27:00.000Z

CLICK TO ENLARGE

As you can see from Hittail, my top two keyword phrases by a long way are, 'AGLOCO scam' and 'Wealthtoolbox'. If you look closer you will notice that the top 10 keywords are all to do with my referral programs (all of which I promote on this site, apart from Wealthtoolbox which I have doubts about). In a simple, boring sort of a way this is a good thing for me, it means that I am going to get referrals for these programs because lots of people view my posts on them and so they must be well ranked in the search engines. Although from another perspective this is quite disheartening….

When I started this blog at the very end of 2006 my aims were simple, to get referrals for various programs. This however, is no longer the case as I have learned that referral/affiliate programs 'should' be just one aspect of making money online. I have tried (and I still am trying) to make this blog something people actually find useful. My previous articles such as 8 Simple Rules for... Successful Blogging are testament to this. Hittail would suggest that I have failed in a sense, because far fewer people are actually reading them. It is not just Hittail that supports this, but it is obvious, I receive more comments on posts about e.g. AGLOCO or Bestcashrewards and its a fact, I get referrals for them, so why am I complaining??? (I actually don't know)

Anyway, looking at with a more sensible perspective, there is a reason for this and that is because there is far more competition for advice about making money online so it is harder to rank well in the search engines. All in all, the point of this post (other than for me to clear my head) was to give you an idea about the aims of this blog, where it came from, and where it’s going.

Coming up:
- In 1 week today there will be the first in the series of Google Analytics overviews for this site, where you will be lucky enough for to find out where this site gets its traffic from and how much it gets.
- I will be shifting to making weekly earnings reports instead of monthly ones which just take too long to wait for.
- Insider info about my new sites and partnership with Garry Conn.

Squidoo - Web 2.0...and all that

2007-02-17T11:36:00.000Z

While we sit here blogging, people around us are doing something that will make them rich. Everyone who is at least 1/50th nerd knows that Web 2.0 (social networks, online video etc) is where it's at. Why aren’t I doing it?

1. Because I'm lazy
2. Because I will...in a bit.

In the meantime, while I gather my thoughts and ideas for the future what else is there to do but take a look at these sites and blog about them?

This morning I took a look at Squidoo. I first heard about it on Mylot and I though it could be a good place to promote my referral programs and get a little more traffic for this blog. You also earn on Squidoo from the AdSense ads that are displayed on your 'lenses' (pages) that you create. Sqidoo keeps a portion and you can chose whether to keep your portion or donate it to charity.

"with no other deductions, we pay 5% of our post-expense revenue directly to the charity pool, 50% directly to our lensmasters and retain the rest to pay off investors and employees"

I decided to make my first lens on an affiliate program and see if I could get some referrals (I know I'm so sleazy!). I typed in the search bar, 'AGLOCO', but there were already a zillion lenses on that, so I tried a couple of others and eventually I found one that there was only 1 other lens on; and that was Cashcrate.

Actually making a lens is pretty easy and there’s not really any point in me going through the process, you just follow the steps. The only hiccup was the first two times I clicked 'publish' it said there was an error on in my lens, so I just re-saved everything and it worked after that.

Here is the final product: My CashCrate lens.

The FAQ is pretty good and should answer any questions you have. Personally I think Squidoo is going to be huge, (it already has over 40,000 members). I’m going to do a lot more 'Squidooing' and see if I can make a reasonable amount of money from it. I will let you know the results!

Traffic Exchange Programs

2007-02-16T14:19:00.000Z

Traffic exchange programs have been around for longer than I can remember (admittedly that’s not long...). Over the last month or so I have been playing around with a few of them to see it they are worth all the attention they get. For those of you who are unfamiliar with traffic exchange programs, they are very simple. You sign up, create an account and enter the URL of your site/s. Normally there is an option to 'surf for credits', which involves browsing the other sites listed in their database. After a given time on one site (e.g. 30 seconds) you can click a button that takes you to the next one. You earn 'credits' for each site you surf which are converted into hits for your site. There are usually other ways to acquire credits but these depend on which site you use and vary from buying credits to earning them by making referrals.

With what I have said to far you probably think they sound great, but there must be a reason why we don't do them all the time. Here are a few pros and cons of traffic exchange programs.

Pros
- Bring targeted traffic to your site at no cost to you apart from your time. (Unless you chose the paid option).

- Expose you to more websites, some of which may be interesting/useful.

- Can be fairly effective for gaining referrals for online schemes, because the users of the traffic exchange program will be web users and possibly affiliate marketers.

- You don't actually have to read the page you are surfing to earn the credits. I confess I often have a traffic exchange programs running while I am doing something else and I just check back occasionally and click the button to earn the credits.

Cons
- It is against many advertising programs TOS, namely Google AdSense to have a site on a traffic exchange program. In my opinion this is the single biggest con.

- The traffic may be targeted, but as I said you don't have to read the page to earn the credits so many people won't even read anything of what you have written.

- People learn to filter out the crap AND its BORING!. Meaning that on the rare occasions I surf 'properly' and read what I am browsing, I cannot help but be sickened by all the crap and spammy worthless pages that are floating around on these programs. This normally results in me switching off and just mindlessly clicking the button. If you want to know what its like to be a robot performing mindless repetitive takes you will love traffic exchanges.

- The presence of so many worthless sites shows that lots of the people using them are worthless as well lol. i.e. they couldn’t build a site of value if they tried so do you really want them to be your referral?

- Some of the sites are 'dodgy' and do who knows what to your computer. Many of the sites I have surfed using these programs have made my computer go REALLY slow for a while and do other nasty things to it, I have reported the sites that did this but there are still a lot out there, so beware.

Ok so those are a few pros and cons. I am a member of these 3 traffic exchange programs.

TrafficG - If I must pick a favourite this would be it. The credits earned here get used up very quickly, which shows that they have the most users. This means they there is the potential to surf all day and not build up a surplus of credits so you can get the most traffic with TrafficG. They also have the best quality traffic because the minimum surf time is 30 seconds. As well as that they also have a decent system where you get rewarded with a better ‘credits – hits’ ratio if you do a lot of surfing.

Blog Mad - have a minimum surf time 25 seconds which I suppose is a happy medium. However they do seem to have fewer users and I have been able to build up a stockpile of credits too easily.

AdSence Elite Team - have a minimum surf time of juts 10 seconds with makes surfing feel more productive but the quality of traffic you will receive will be much lower.

All in all there is not a huge difference between the different programs. If you are really going to get stuck into traffic exchange programs it would be best to use all three anyway. Also do not think these are the only ones, there are plenty more out there.

My advice would be to only use traffic exchange programs in the very early stages of your blog, if at all. There are lots of other more effective and rewarding ways of getting traffic, like building quality content. If you don't have a developed site and you are just promoting one affiliate program then you may find them more useful, but remember you cannot have AdSense ads if you do use one .

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Blog Review: Earners blog

2007-02-16T10:03:00.000Z

Stuart, over at Earners blog has offered a John Chow style 'Review my blog and get a 'free' linkback'; but this time there’s a twist. The best review of Earners Blog will also receive $25 via Paypal & an SEO Audit of their website with recommendations & thoughts.

I'm in!

Earners blog is one of the many sites (like this one) about making money online. It's also similar to this blog because it is also a top blog in it's niche :p. Earners blog has some great down-to-earth posts that we can all learn a little from. Stewart has been in the Online Marketing Industry for over 4 years currently works for one of the Fastest Growing SEO Companies in the World. This means he has knoweldge!.

Before writing this review I thought I should really get stuck into Earners blog so I browsed around and read a lot of the articles. These are the three most useful ones in my opinion, so if you read anything today, read these.

- Walkthough Affiliate Marketing
- Good Internal Linking Increases SE Rankings
- Do You Squidoo? (I will be checking out Squidoo myself soon).

Earners blog has quite a casual feel to it. Each post is summarised and you decide whether to 'continue reading' or not. I find my self 'picking and choosing' which posts I want to read more freely, because normally I would just read the title and make a decision 'to read or not to read - that is the question. With this layout however I can have a dabble in the post and make a more informed decision.

All in all, Earners blog has numerous posts about Affiliate marketing, Social Networking and AdSense that we all want to know about. A couple of the posts seem like they end without teaching me what I was expecting to learn, but generally this is a great site, so check out those links in list above.

Coming up: - Squidoo Stuff and a look at the pros and cons of traffic exchange programs.

John Chow - 1000 AGLOCO signups in 10 Days!

2007-02-14T11:58:00.000Z

As you know I have been following John Chow's AGLOCO success (that post explains how his direct referrals alone will make him over $15,000 in shares). Earlier today he announced:

"Barely 10 days after reaching 4,000 AGLOCO sign ups, I have passed the 5,000 sign up mark in my AGLOCO network. As I write this post, I am sitting at 5,072 total referrals with 571 Directs.".

This shows the awesome power of viral marketing and is an inspiration to us all. I have 30 people in my AGLOCO network network, 19 of which are direct. The Simmons report explains that on average each direct referral will be worth approximately $30 in shares. This means if they were to float on the stock market later today (which won't actually happen until the end of the year) my network would be worth:

30x19= $570 in shares. Along with the $150 I am worth (each active member/founder is estimated to be worth $150) that brings the total up to $720. That doesn't take into account my indirect referrals and earnings from them using Viewbar, which is "currently slated for March" release. Once it is released the number of people looking to sign up will skyrocket meaning more potential referrals but more competition. You can get ahead of the game and Join my AGLOCO network.

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101 ways to make money online

2007-02-14T10:43:00.000Z

Over at Experienced People there is a mega 5 page article listing 101 ways to make money online.

"50. Design and offer logos and icons downloadable for free

51. Award them to websites you like ... provided they pay you an "admin" fee every year to continue using the logo."

I found those two to be the most interesting. I might just implement them...although people would not only want a logo that is eye-catching, but it also needs to be from a reputable site. I may do that on the new site that I am planning (I have a few online 'ventures' going on right now so it will take a while for me to get round to physically building it, but stay tuned!). Many of the other 101 ideas are not really related to money from blogging and are more business oriented but if that’s what you want to get into then it's worth a read. There is a lot of stuff about eBay which, quite frankly is pushing the limits of making money online. Anyway, most of us know the basics, its just a case of letting time take its course and finding specific sites that can boost our progress along the way. The basic cycle is

Site design -->Make Content --> Attain Traffic --> Monetise traffic --> Make More content

Of course it's a little more complicated than that but those are the basic ideas behind making money from blogging. Site design has a far more important role to play in 'real' sites where there is much more flexibility and opportunities to make an original looking site.

COMING UP: A review of Earnersblog

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