Growing the Right Part of your Online Money Making Business

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

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.

Online Money Making With Blogging Fingers

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).

Whats up with Feedburner?!

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

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

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

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.

Sponsored Reviews Refunded Me!

In my last post I explained about how I wrote three sponsored posts using Sponsored Reviews but two of the purchases were made using stolen credit cards and so I only received payment for one of the three posts.

Yesterday I found they had sent the other $21 they 'owed' me into my PayPal account! They also sent an e-mail outlining what they had done:

"With that being said we have gone through and credited all bloggers for the amounts they would have earned for the work they completed. Since payday was this past Saturday and you were not paid for these reviews, we have gone ahead and completed a special payment run"

I am happy to now have restored trust in them and I will keep using Sponsored Reviews, especially because it is not part of their TOS to refund me but they did it anyway. As well as issuing this "special payment run" they outlined some changes they have made to their system:

"We have restricted access for certain countries that are known for this type of fraud, as well as implemented new procedures to weed out potential problem advertisers."

It's great to see they are in touch with their users and provide an adaptable service. I like to think that perhaps my last post influenced them ;p. Whatever the reason it is for the best and thanks for the unexpected refund Sponsored Reviews! This is a step in the right direction for those of you looking for a trusted site to make money online with.

Sponsored Reviews Stole My Money!

Remember yesterday there was that batch of 3 sponsored posts? Well, now there is only one. I thought I had earned just over $24 for writing them and I should have been paid that by the end of yesterday into my PayPal account. All was not to be.

This morning (25 minutes ago - can you still feel the rage?) I received this email:

"Dear Blogger,

It has come to our attention that fraudulent purchases have been made through our system. You were approached by an advertiser to write a review for one of the following Domains:

-- 9SEM.com

-- Eyemiss.com

-- Hidrotips.com

Unfortunately, these purchases were made with stolen credit cards and we have no choice but to return the money to the credit card holder and delete the order in our system. This means that we are unable to pay you for the review that you completed, and ask that you remove it from your site(s).

We apologize for this inconvenience and for the time you spent writing the review. We assure you that we are taking measures to prevent this from happening in the future. This sort of fraud is rare and difficult to catch through standard fraud prevention schemes.

We appreciate your understanding and your continued support. Please submit a support ticket if you have any questions"

I thought perhaps there had been a mistake, but then checking my PayPal account revealed only the payment for the first review had been paid. The payment history in Sponsored Reviews told the same story.

I checked the Terms and Conditions and of course they don't have to pay me. Its quite ironic that I have an entire site devoted to uncovering internet scams and then I got scammed myself by what we all thought to be a respectable company.

Admittedly it wasn't technically Sponsored Reviews who 'stole my money' but it makes me wonder if it's worth writing more sponsored posts via them. I know there is no such thing as easy money online but the ratio is pretty bad, 2/3 of the purchases from them were by stolen credit cards! I have never heard of this happening before, has this happened to you?

Maybe I am just being punished for selling my blogging soul to the Sponsored post devil...

Online Money Making - SERPS Madness!

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!

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!

Guest Bloggers Wanted!

 

 

 

 

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.

SEO Video Tutorial Series - Keywords

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!.

Successful Online Money Making ! - Blog Updates

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!