6 Things Problogger Doesn't Have

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?!

Textlink Ads - Proof of Payment

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).

Text link Ads Calculator

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).

Text link Ads have a new Homepage Layout

Text Link Ads' new Homepage layout doesn't really affect anything, I mean its one page, on one site. So why am I even bothering to mention it? Because I strongly believe thatText Link Ads is going to get big, well I am it's a bit late for that 'belief' because they are already pretty massive.

They probably changed the Homepage for a number of reasons. On the old page their was some info about it's founders and not much about what Text link ads actually did. The plan behind this was to create trust with the early advertisers/publishers by showing some friendly faces including that of the co-founder Darren Rowse who is well known among the blogging community. Now that they have built up thousands of users they can rely on the strength of the brand name and they now boast about the number of users by saying"Join over 10,000+ publishers monetizing their sites.".

They have also maximised their income streams by starting up "Featured Publishers" who presumably pay to get on the homepage. The new Homepage also displays a new-found sense of confidence in their product e.g.

"Advertisers: Improve your traffic and search engine rankings.
Only TLA can deliver an ad that does both."

"Publishers: Make more money by selling text based ads.
Join over 10,000+ publishers monetizing their sites."

So as I said at the beginning, Text link ads are on the way up and we can learn from the techniques they used to become successful.

Text link Ads - Payment

CLICK TO ENLARGE
Yesterday I received my first ever check from Text Link Ads (aff link). The image is blurry but readable which what is important, just in case you thought I am telling porkies. I covered up my address and Text link ads address with pieces of paper. It is for $25 for a single referral I made on January 10th.

Text link ads place static HTML links of high quality, high traffic sites. They rejected this blog because of its lack of Google Pagerank, which it will get at the next update (I’m hoping for a PR4!!). If you are rejected to display ads you can still join their affiliate program and make money like I did. You make $25 for each member you refer who becomes an accepted publisher.

Text link ads are the first company I have actually received my payment from, they have been reliable and easy to promote due to their co-founder Darren Rowse' respectable public image as the problogger. The only bad thing I can think about them is that the print on my check is slightly smudged.... but that’s about it!

You can sign up to Text link ads through my affiliate link

Looking up the skirt of January as she goes past

January has seen a boom in both my knowledge and for this blog. It is now just over a month old and has over 60 'decent' posts, which isn't bad for its first month. Its traffic has steadily grown although is still far from what I'd like. I used to struggle to get 100 visitors per day but now if I make just 1 post a day this blog gets at least 120 visitors. Money wise, my AdSense earnings have significantly increased since I repositioned them to be in their current positions, although much more traffic is needed to make a decent amount. I have made lots of online contacts and personally I have learnt a huge amount, which I have tried to pass on to you.

Aims for February:

- Provide a blog that people actually find useful and isn't just me displaying my knowledge.

- Increase traffic to 300 visitors a day if I make one post per day.

- Get into the Technorati top 100,000 (at the moment I’m ranked about 170,00).

- Get Dugg once (achieving this would basically mean I achieve my other aims)

- Get 100 people in my AGLOCO network (at the moment I have 25)

- Get to Level 7 on Bestcashrewards (at the moment I am on Level 3)

- Get listed in DMOZ the free directory/Alexa, (I submitted many moons ago but its still not listed; this isn't an aim I actually have any influence over). This will allow me to get a Google Pagerank at the next update and which means I will be able to display Textlink ads.

I believe every one is achievable. It will take a lot of work but will set me in good stead for the rest of the year.

Text Link Ads - Summary

It seems like years ago I last posted about Text Link Ads. For bloggers with page rank 4 or more they are a MUST HAVE. This is how they work:

"Text Link Ads are priced at a flat rate per month per link. You prepay for a 30 day run of your ad. Your ad will never be turned off if it gets too many impressions or clicks. Our pricing algorithm factors in a website's: traffic, theme, ad position, and link popularity when setting the flat ad rate per month".

This flat rate gives the advantage of PREDICTABILITY which is non-existent with AdSense and other Pay per Click advertising schemes. This is great if you are a publisher (blogger) but even better if you are an advertiser because you can be guaranteed not to go over your budget which can be a major problem with Google AdWords if say the site you by links on gets Dugg and receives an unexpected horde of traffic.

One of the founders is Darren Rowse, the Problogger who is known for his wisdom and is considered an all-round blogger Guru. Text link ads can be used with Google AdSense ads which means that you can generate a substantial income overall (I have previously posted about the importance of DIVERSIFICATION; i.e. not putting all your eggs in one basket). To apply for Text Link Ads click here.