Jack Parker's Make Money Blogging

FTC To Monitor Blogs

2009-06-22T19:46:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting post on Outside The Beltway regarding a recent announcement from the FTC that they plan to monitor and regulate blogs. Apparently they have decided that they are not happy with 'paid reviews' and the like, especially if in their minds, the blogger hasn't disclosed it's a paid review, or in some way perhaps misrepresents facts or something about a product. It also extends to ads placed on blogs and even, apparently, some issues about things like Amazon links for products. This could get tricky, albeit a bit foolish and difficult to control, given the enormous number of blogs and the difficulty in trying to chase down bloggers.

Just thought you might want to be aware of the plan. Naturally, the blogosphere sorts out the good from the bad anyway, and if you are giving good reviews on junk, it won't be long before your blogger word and therefore your blog, won't be much use to you or anyone, once your readers find out you are misleading them. If you are. But lets be honest, for the most part, all we do is point customers to products, whether that is through ppc ads, or product reviews, or just mentioning a product in our posts. Is that wrong? As Outside The Beltway points out, if that is wrong, what are the FTC guys going to do about things like paid product placements on television and movies? Not only that, what does that say for so called 'free speech'?

Don't stand for it bloggers.....

Blogging...In for the long run.....

2009-05-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long time between posts, but to tell the truth, I have been pretty busy making money blogging, almost too busy to be writing about it....

This blog is not my money maker, some of the other sites I have are starting to do much better. I've been focusing my efforts on posting on those, which as I am sure you know, takes a lot of time.

The good news is, althought this is taking forever, it is starting to show some returns, abeit small returns. For me at least, blogging is not a get rich quick scheme. I know it appears to be for some bloggers, who claim big incomes from their blogs. For me, it is a lot of work night after night. The good part is, I enjoy the writing and I enjoy the comments and I enjoy the affilate sales I make. It is rather rewarding in a non-monetary way to see that you have some readers signed up through Feedburner, and to get comments, and to see that your readership is reaching the triple digits each day.

The money, well...it isn't quite a car payment yet, but it is getting there. I'm convinced that although the work is long and hard, it is going to be worth it in the long run, and I am in for the long run.....how about you?

Three Column Blogger Template

2009-04-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

I think I wrote about this before, in fact I know I did, but I have to tell ya again.....In my previous post about 3 column blogger templates I mentioned that I wasn't convinced a three column template was necessary or even better than the standard two column, but I did say that I was thinking about trying a couple anyway. Well the time came today....I changed two of my blogs from the standard two column layout to a three column layout today! I have to tell you, I like it so far!

I owe a debt of thanks to Amanda at Blogger Buster for her tutorial on creating a three column template for Blogger blogs.

I followed Amanda's instructions carefully, and it was actually very easy to do. I had a couple of little setbacks but nothing drastic and nothing I couldn't figure out. In fact, by the time I finished the last one, I had it pretty much down to a science. All you need to do is follow Amanda's instructions carefully, take your time, and make sure you understand exactly what you are putting where, and you will be fine.

I now have three blogs with a three column template. My main posts are in the center with a sidebar on either side, perfect. Using the Blogger Buster instructions you can also set up your blog to have the to sidebar columns on one side of the page, which might also be good, especially if you have a lot of banner type ads. I think they work well in that type of layout.

I am going to test them for awhile and see what impact the extra column has on my Adsense and other affilate sales. So far I am very pleased with the look of the extra column. It certainly provides a great place for additional information without making the page too long. I can actually double the number of products I advertise with the addition of the extra column. That means more items shown, which should mean more items sold, which of course means more commission for me....Jack Parker....

Making Online Money In Tough Financial Times

2009-03-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

Tough economic times are upon us, as folks are losing their jobs and their homes and savings. What is that going to do to those of us trying to make some income from our blogs and websites. Is this economic downturn going to hurt the e-commerce business? Is it going to have a negative impact on advertising?

No doubt the answer to both is yes, it will have an negative impact on both sales and advertising. But..it might not be all bad...

With tough times, people still need stuff and they still buy stuff, they just become a bit more discerning about where they spend their money, making it important for us to offer the best deals possible in our affilate sales and other offerings. Maybe it's time to look at the products you offer and see if there is a way to either bring the cost down, or offer more for the same money. This is particularly easy with e-books because you can throw in another book for the same price, and hopefully encourage your customers with the idea of a good deal.

For sales of other products, no time is it more important to make sure the items you sell, either yourself or through an affiliate program like Amazon are the best value you can find.

Adsense...well...who knows that depends on the ads and the price advertisers are paying, making it even more important to keep an eye on your keywords etc.

On the other hand, the financial slowdown might mean that more folks have more free time, free time which they might spend reading blogs....your blog and mine....

Internet Marketing Fundamentals

2009-01-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

I have worked at several enterprises in my life, several of them related to sales and marketing, and always found it to be an interesting occupation. I can say the same for internet marketing, with a twist. Although the premise is the same, selling something to somebody, so much internet marketing and sales, are one kind of one sided. Sure, there is email, and blog comments, and so on, but you don't have the one on one personal side of sales, that moment when you look the customer in the eye and ask for the sale.

That used to be the cornerstone of good sales and marketing, asking for the sale. You could make the best sales pitch in the world, but if you didn't end up by asking the client for their order, most of the time, the sale didn't happen. These days, in the time of big box stores and department style stores like Walmart, the importance of the sales person has lessened, the sales pitch is made by the product itself and the packaging, and a large reliance on advertising, pre-selling the product through TV, print, radio ads etc. The difference is, no one askes for the sale. But in sales situations where capturing the sale is not based on price as much as convincing someone that your product beats the competition, like car sales for example, sales persons still dominate, and still ask for the sale.

It's been my experience, that when it comes to internet marketing, asking for the sale is important. Granted, the customer is not looking you in the eye, and can say no just by clicking the back button, but you still have to ask. You wouldn't think it necessary, but it is....I have found that when I write a pitch page for a product, and end it by asking the customer if they would like me to send them one, etc, I sell more than if I just leave the product info make the sale, or perhaps just a link to the product page.

Customers are people, and people are the same, in many ways. If you spend time teaching someone about a product, it's benefit to them, etc, and then ask them to buy one, it's amazing how many will. The "ask" as it is called in popular culture today, is the last thing you do, in fact, for most of the pitch, you should be emphasizing the product and it's benefits, almost like you are not concerned about selling it as you are about telling your readers about it. By the time you get to the 'ask' you already have them sold, they are just looking for the way to do it. That's where your 'click here to purchase yours' link comes in, at the end, just in time for them to be wondering where to get one.

Lately I have been experimenting with the page my customers land on when they do click the link to buy. I am finding that it is best if they end up directly at the point where they put in their credit card info etc. If your link takes them to another pitch page, you run the risk of them either losing interest, changing their mind, or reading something that changes their opinion of the product. It's better that you customers who click to purchase a product go directly to the page where the sale is finalized. You have already asked for the sale through your post or pitch page, they have agreed by clicking the link, put them where they can complete the purchase.

Think about it this way, a car salesman sells you a car, you agree to the sale, the next thing you are in the business office, and they writing up the contract and taking your money. Good sales people don't want you back out on the sales floor wandering around looking at other models, because you might change your mind, or you might see another model you prefer and they have to start the sales pitch all over again. It's a form of manipulation, or control of their customer. They have your agreement to purchase, the next thing to do is get your money. In your internet marketing endeavors you need to do the same thing.

Try it yourself. Pay attention to your landing pages, make sure that the sales page is the final page your readers see, don't over do it with additional sales hype after the sale is made. Let me know how it works for you.

One final note about this. I believe the ideas I expressed above are related to the sale of products like Amazon sales for example. If you are selling online products like e-books for example, where there is usually a very indepth sales page created by the publisher, you might want to approach it a little differently. There your goal is to get your readers to their pages and let them do the sales pitch. In those types of sales, you are more an advertiser than a sales office. Your job is to bring people to them, and let them make the sale. That is similar to the Walmart model I mentioned at the beginning, Walmart gets you into the store and infront of the products that then do the sales pitch.

Let me know what you think. Does this make sense?

Time Management For Bloggers

2008-12-14T16:10:00.001-08:00

As a blogger and website writer, I know the importance of good time management. I know the importance of it, but that doesn't necessarily mean I know about it....or do a good job at it.....

There have been hundreds, no thousands of books written on time management. Numerous theories and approaches to it, as well, many folks make a decent living teaching time management courses in Universities and to company executives. I'm sure that most of the courses and books will work if you apply the theories, regardless of the particular technique. It all boils down to the same thing, finding ways to make the most of your available time to get done what you need to get done successfully. No where is that more important than in the making money from blogs world.

Bloggers are faced with innumerable challenges to our time. First of all, there are all the distractions of life, be that family, day jobs, recreation, home repairs....whatever....then there is the distraction of looking at our blog visitor hits each day...and of course our Adsense earnings, and Amazon sales etc...it goes on and on...don't forget idle surfing of other people's sites....but none of that is actually making you money. Let's take a look at what makes you money.

Assuming you have a blog or website with the ad and affiliate codes installed, all there is for you to do is write and get traffic. If you write, you will get traffic. that is how it works, content means you show up in the search engines and showing up in search engines means people find you. People are traffic. Whether or not they are the right kind of traffic is something for another post.

So how do I manage to write enough posts to update at least 10 blogs per day? I read a lot and I write a lot. I read whenever I cannot write. Waiting for a bus, on my lunch, and I stay as tuned as I can to what is happening in the world. Then I write about it, religiously every night. Most weeks I write 7 nights a week. But I could do more. I find that I am distracted by other websites and news items and time slips away, an hour can get through your fingers like water if you aren't focused on what you are doing. I have found that the best way to focus is through setting some goals. Nothing too tough, just a goal that says I will write a minimum of 10 blog posts a night and I try to stick to that. Some nights I go over, some nights I don't make it to 10, but it's my target, it's what I shoot for. I find having that goal in mind helps to remind me not to spend a lot of time surfing or reading other people's blogs or looking at pictures on Flicker, that seldom results in me making any money.

So....focus on a target and don't stop until you hit that target. It should be something that isn't unattainable, but not too easy either, or else you may find it too easy and lose that precious focus.

Make no mistake about it, blogging is hard work, blogging for money is really hard work, and it takes time, so take that into consideration whenever you are blogging, your time is money, no where is that truer than in the blog business. Focus on getting your posts posted and worry about the other stuff later....

Here are a couple of books that might be useful if you have time management issues.
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management
Time Management from the Inside Out, second edition: The Foolproof System for Taking Control of Your Schedule--and Your Life
No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs (No B.S. Series)

Getting Website Traffic

2008-11-22T15:38:00.000-08:00

I came across this article by Y. Julaidan, author of three interesting blogs, Internet Business and Money and Food and Cooking and Health Fitness and Beauty I think that you will find this interesting, some of it is stuff you already know I am sure, but it never hurts to read another person's ideas and think about how they agree or disagree with your own.

The comprehensive guide to getting website traffic in today's world - a general overview by Y. Julaidan

In this article I will list the many ways and methods to get traffic to a website in a general comprehensive overview. The purpose is to highlight the variety regardless of all other variables. In other words, the only criteria here is pure listing not cost efficiency or traffic effectiveness. I think it is important to have the big picture in mind before starting to devise a plan to generate traffic to any website. Why? Because not all websites are the same. One traffic generating method can only work with certain types of websites and another method can only work with other types of websites. For example, the methods used to generate traffic to an e-commerce website might not be as effective in generating traffic to an information nonprofit website.
Generating website traffic can be classified into two big groups based on the cost incurred. One is paid even though as cheap as few cents per visitor and the other one is free! As good as it might sound; generating free traffic is harder than and not as effective as paid traffic generation. This is pretty natural because in general, the companies that specialize in the service of generating traffic to websites have breakthrough technologies and experienced teams of specialists with the only purpose of generating quality targeted traffic for their customers. I am not trying to degrade free traffic as it is important to reduce costs, but in general paid traffic still supersedes free traffic in terms of quality and quantity.

Paid traffic isn't affordable by all advertisers, but still it offers a lot of peace of mind and results. Here is a list of the most prominent paid traffic generation methods:-

1- Pay per click (PPC):- Known by all yet most hated for sucking cents and dollars out of advertisers pockets without as much satisfying results. Google being the king of PPC has been making life harder and harder for PPC advertisers by imposing more and more criteria to determine which ads get higher positions in PPC ads. Believe it or not, if your website isn't optimized enough for Google, your ad will not get better positions even if your bid is higher than others! This proves the point that even though PPC is disappointing many advertisers, there is actually a logic that you have to figure out to get better results from your PPCs. There are techniques to get better results from your PPC campaigns using low and pocket friendly bids, which is going to be a topic of another article that I'm going to write about.

2- Paid SEO services: - SEO is a short for Search Engine Optimization. In short it is about optimizing the design and the coding of a website so it can get better free ranking in search engines. This is referred to as organic ranking. Even though the end result is free better ranking, still SEO companies charge tons of money to make a website search engine optimized. I will address SEO in more detail in future articles.

3- Paid targeted 100% opt-in e-mail blasts: - There are advertising companies that have huge lists of 100% opt-in subscribers. 100% opt-in means that every one of their subscribers has agreed to receive promotional e-mails from them on the topics of their choice and this is how it is targeted. This method has proven its effectiveness, but there are a lot of fake companies out there that claim 100% opt-in, but actually have much lower opt-in percentages or even not at all. This is important because you don't want to pay for a campaign that ends up in the junk or spam folder of the users e-mail. Be careful and deal with the reputable ones only.

4- Banners and image based advertising: - this form has lost its effectiveness over the years, but still is used by many advertisers. Find the ones that work like PPCs, which means you don't get charged for impressions; only clicks.

5- Guaranteed visitors schemes: - These are companies that promise you a number of targeted traffic for a fee. Usually they will tell you that they get the traffic from expired domains and traffic redirected from other sites. Trust me, for the most part, these are scams so beware. It could work well for those who have gambling or sex related websites because they canâ€™t use PPCs to promote their websites.

6- Video advertising: - A new and growing advertising trend that Google is pursuing heavily. Yes I know that you can post videos in YouTube for free, but I'm talking about a new wave of video advertising that is very similar to PPC. It will be more popular soon so watch for it.

Now for the fun and most pleasing part, free traffic! Getting results from free traffic requires much more work and time compared to paid traffic. Even though these methods generate free traffic, I see a lot of courses and e-books sold for hundreds and even thousands of dollars to teach people these methods. So much for the free part! Luckily, you will be able to get an overview of these free traffic methods for free today. I'm not going to explain each in detail, but will be the topics of some of my future articles:-

1- Article marketing: - You write good articles, post them in article directories with links pointing to your website. People read the article, like what they read and visit your website. I will address it more in future articles.

2- Website directories: - these are directories that organize websites in categories which makes it easier for people to find what they are looking for. Even though all will let you submit your link for free, a lot of them offer a "premium"listing for a fee which is worth paying if they have high search engine ranking.

3- Video sites like YouTube, Yahoo and MSN videos: - don't underestimate its power! Find at least 10 more video sites and submit your videos to them. But how can you advertise your website with video? Get a screen capture video maker. There are free ones online and sold. My advice is to buy one for the quality of videos as free ones produce low quality videos. Make a small presentation about your website on your own screen, capture it on video and upload it to video sites. that's it! It will be helpful if you use a basic video editing software like windows movie maker to add your URL on the bottom of the video.

4- Forums and blogs: - This works in two ways. Either you own a blog or forum and generate your own community using quality content and funnel this traffic to your website. The other is to post comments with links pointing to your website in high ranking blogs and forums.

5- RSS feeds: - you can set up an RSS feed linking to the topics and issues in your website and syndicate it. More on this on future articles.

6- Groups and newsletters: - Can be found in all major search engines and internet service providers like Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN. Establish relations and spread the word about your websites. Avoid spamming and misbehaving!

7- Online free classifieds: - There are so many. The only problem is that your ads in these classifieds need re-updating every 1 or 2 days which is very time consuming.

8- Social bookmarking: - These are sites where people leave sort of brief descriptions about their websites, blogs, forums etc. and a link to visit.

9- Social media/interaction websites or what is called web 2.0:- My Space, Face book, twitter and Squidoo are all examples of this new internet trend. Basically they are all about an online gathering point where people express themselves and share knowledge, experiences, hobbies, passions, pictures, videos, music and much more. Why not use it to get traffic to your website?

10- Going viral: - Don't ever think that this is not important because this is number 10. It can be the most powerful traffic generating tool if you know how to use it. An example would be giving away a free report with lots of information and your website links inside. Give it to as many people as you can and in turn they give it away. This can continue forever and never stop. That's why they call it viral and is very powerful!

If you ask me which methods are the best and should be used to get traffic, I would say all of them. The only problem is that we have limited resources and I mean time and money. I suggest using a mix of free and paid traffic. The mix to be determined according to what type of website is promoted and traffic objectives. Watch out for more detailed articles on the subject.

For more free information and guides, visit Internet Business and Money

About the Author: Y. Julaidan
I write about everything that interests me. I'm good at it because I find facts and paint a clear picture afterwards.
I like to build informative websites too. Check out my websites:-
www.internet-business-and-money.com
www.foodandcooking.org
www.health-fitness-and-beauty.com

Making Money Online - At Last!

2008-10-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

I have to apologize for not posting lately, but I have been busy...busy making money online! Yes, after what seems a long time of trial and error, perserverance and hard work, I am finally starting to make some money from my blog! Sure, I still have my day job, and probably will for some time to come, but I am now making enough extra money from my online efforts to call it worthwhile.

This has been a long journey, all the way from 2005 when I first discovered blogs and blogging. In fact, I was blogging before even some of our IT guys knew what a weblog was. Oddly enough, I cannot remember how I discovered blogging, but I do remember that I didn't start it with the idea of making money. I started with the idea of improving my writing skills, and to get started on what I hoped would someday be a regular newspaper column, and a book.

I seldom think about the newspaper column anymore, and I gave up the book around the middle. Not that either of these ideas has left me entirely, far from it, but I have decided that blogging accomplishes two things I wanted, to write and to be read. Now I have blogs that, over the course of a day, see several thousand readers a day. Granted, not everyone who comes to my blogs read them, but many do, and those that do seem appreciative of what I have to say. That in itself is almost payment enough for my efforts, but, I have never lost sight of the idea that I would someday make enough money from my blogs that I could quit my day job. That is still my goal, and I know that eventually I will reach it, although I will likely be retired by that time. However, retirement might free me up for some of the other projects, like the book, that I have on the backburner.

Tracking Performance - Channels

2008-10-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

I believe I reported recently that my Adsense earnings were up, well they are up even higher today, and wow, what a feeling that is....Imagine my surprise when I clicked on my account to check my earnings and it was three times what it usually is. Now before you get all excited, that is still not life changing money, but it is money.

The worst of it is, I am not sure where it is coming from because I stupidly haven't gotten around to setting up channels for all of my add placements. So...I obviously haven't been practicing what I have been preaching.

I have been telling you all along to set your ads up with channels, particularly if you have multiple blogs, so that you can tell which blogs and which placements are doing the best. Then, you can use those placements and those blog ideas for your other blogs. Except, I found it easier to set up the adsense code right inside the blog, which of course doesn't have a place to set it up as a channel. So, now I have an increase in earnings and I am not sure where it is coming from. Stupid me....

So don't you be dumb like me, get your Adsense in channels and keep track of where and how you are making money from your website.

10 Things I have Learned About Making Money Online

2008-10-06T14:34:00.000-07:00

I thought that tonight might be a good chance to go over a quick list of some of the things I have learned about making money from a website or blog. It's not a particularly long list, but then again, I am a slow learner....
1) I have learned that making money from a blog requires a lot of hard work....whew....a lot of hard work....

2) I have also learned that it is all about content. When you read the articles that say "content is king" they are not kidding, you need content, and copious amounts of it to build the kind of traffic you need to make any money from advertising or affiliate sales.

3)I have learned that you need to really push affilate items if you want sales. It's not enough to just feature a widget or a link in your sidebar. You have to push them.

4) I have learned that a domain name rather than a wordpress or blogger name in your URL works a little bit better. My hits have increased since switching many of my blog to a .com address that I own. It's worth the $10

5) I have learned that there are a lot of experts in the make money blogging field, some of them actually know what they are talking about. Others...well...not so much.

6) I have learned what the experts say, 'ads above the fold do well' At least better than ads placed below the fold.

7) I have learned that Adsense is probably the best way to consistently make money, at least for the kind of blog enterprise that I have undertaken.

8) I have learned that there are several other ways to make money online, including writing and selling e-books, which, although I haven't done it yet, offer all kinds of potential for income.

9) I have learned that sex and celebrities get hits. No matter what your blog topic, if you can find a way to work sex and celebs into your text, you will get hits. Not necessarily hits that convert to money, but you will get hits. What does that say about the internet?

10) I have learned that multiple blogs seems to be the way to go, but....it is very, very difficult to keep multiple blogs current. You need to find the highest number of blogs you can handle and write for, and concentrate on tip number one above, content, content, content.....

How about you? Any tips to add to my list?

Money Making Update

2008-09-30T19:05:00.001-07:00

Hey! It's been a while since I posted, sorry about that. It's not that my blogging has stopped, far from it. I have been concentrating on the blogs and techniques that make me money, which is after all, a big part of why I chose blogging as a second career. That and a love of the written word, writing is one of my passions, and since I have become a blogger, it has become a huge passion. Considering I am writing several hundred words a night, posting to at least 5 blogs each day, I need to love writing....

There are easier ways to make money at this than going alone, creating everything from scratch. There are options you can purchase, for a small investment, like Gary Nugent's SiteBuilder Elite System that will save you tons of time and effort creating websites. I am seriously considering investing in Gary's system myself, as I am realizing that if I am going to make big money at this blogging business, I have to work smart, not hard. I have been working hard for a couple of years, and although the returns are starting to improve, I'm not where I want to be, or for that matter, where I hoped I would be by now. Don't get me wrong, I am happy to recieve the cheques that are coming in, on a monthly basis these days, but it hasn't reached what I would call life changing money yet....note I said "yet" Because I truly believe it will.

I have learned that if you want to make money you have to "will it to come to you" to some degree. Now I don't know if it is possible to just dream money and make it, but I do believe you have to have a money focus, and be open to opportunities and ideas that will make you money if you are truly serious. If you are thinking about making money, you are changing the way you think, and you are putting your mind and your efforts into ideas and processes and plans that will eventually help you to make money. That's where willing it to come to you is important.

I have found that since I changed my focus somewhat, and started to concentrate on money making ideas and doing things related to blogging that make money, my online financial endeavors have improved. Unfortunately blogging to make money means you may not be able to write for the sake of writing, and you do have to control or craft what you write in ways designed to bring money to you. Blogs about products, reviews, written with careful attention to keywords are important. Monitoring how each blog and each ad unit is doing are important. Changing or improving the ones that aren't working is important.

The problem is, making money online requires a lot of effort, a lot of content. As they say, content is king. So you need to be producing tons of content to get the readership, the visitors to your blog, and the right type of visitors too.

I'll be writing more about attracting the right type of readers in an upcoming post.

Thanks for coming by, oh, don't forget to check out Gary Nugent's SiteBuilder Elite System it may be the perfect answer to your online money making business.

Your Own Blog Personality

2008-09-10T18:34:00.000-07:00

Making money online is a daily challenge, no matter what anyone may tell you. It takes an enormous amount of dedication, hard work, long hours and so on. It's also a job requiring a certain amount of creativity. Sure, you can do what the others do, but if you want to be successful, you have to take the things that work for others and put your own spin on them. If you don't, you're just replicating what is already out there, and you will have trouble standing out from the crowd.

With a blog, that can be rather difficult, because the format's are usually the same or very similar, the layouts are basically one of only 3 or 4 varieties.

So how do you stand out from the rest? I think it has to be with your writing. You're gonna need to impart some of your ideas and personality into your writing. Don't be afraid to put your slant on the world into your work. Sure, not everyone will agree with your opinions, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is do they read your blog? Some of the most successful bloggers and columnists for newspapers are very opinionated and their ideas are disagreed with regularly. Believe it or not, that is what makes them so popular.

People like to read both types of written words, the ones they agree with, and the ones they don't. In some cases, the writers they disagree with the most are the ones they like to read. My point is, don't be afraid to say what you think, regardless of what others may think about it. Also, don't be afraid to adopt your own writing style, but don't become a slave to trying to develop a style, it will seem too forced. Your best bet is to write and let your style evolve over the course of your writing, over the course of several...no many posts....

That said, it's OK to look to some of your favorites and try to emulate them, in one way or another, but don't become just another Robert Parker or anyone else for that matter. By all means, use their techniques, just put your own spin on them.

Does that make sense?

A good written personality, strong beliefs in what you write, and engaging subject matter will get you readers over time.
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SiteBuilder Elite System

Free Trial Offer From Amazon Prime

2008-08-11T15:15:00.000-07:00

I'm going to stray a little from making money blogging to how you can save money...on your online Amazon purchases. As you know, I like to promote some Amazon products on this blog and some of my others. In fact, over the last year, I have become convinced that Amazon is one of the best shopping experiences that the internet has to offer. There is almost nothing you cannot find on Amazon...they have it all.

Of course, one of the things to consider with any online purchase are the shipping charges that apply to whatever product you order. Well, those charges can be significantly reduced and eliminated if you sign up for Amazon Prime! This is a fantastic offer from Amazon.com that gives members unlimited free two-day shipping on millions of eligible items. What's even better, all new members are being offered a free trial to give you a chance to experience the convenience of shopping with Amazon Prime. The free trial lasts for one month, you get the entire benefits of Amazon Prime free for one month - no charge.

So what are the benefits of joining Amazon Prime? Well, for starters, it's fast delivery, and there is free two-day shipping on millions of items and you can upgrade to one-day overnight shipping for the low price of just $3.99 an item.
There is no minimum purchase required and you have members only 1-click buttons on product pages.

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Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Affilate Basket

2008-07-08T03:08:00.001-07:00

I am reminded every once and awhile why diversification is important when it comes to monetizing your blog or website. I recently got another of these reminders in relation to an affiliate program I had signed up to on one of my other blogs, My Skimpy Bikini.

I had come across a bikini company called Love Swimwear who produce some very fine and very sexy bikini swimsuits for women. Of course, as a writer of a blog about bikini's I had to look into their affiliate program which seemed to be pretty good, not exactly what I liked, but certainly appropriate for my blog. So I signed up and posted some of their banners and links etc to my blog. I also posted some of their swimwear contest videos, in other words I signed up and committed to promoting their products.

I even wrote to the company about making their pictures more accessible for use on blogs and websites and they did, they responded immediately and I was impressed, thus committed even more to their cause.

Imagine my surprise when I looked at my email the other day to discover that they had 'suspended their affiliate program' indefinitely. That was not only a surprise, it left me with a lot of affiliate links and posts on my blog for a company that apparently no longer has an affilate program. In other words, I am now advertising their company and products for free.

So I am left with a bit of a dilemma, do I leave the posts containing links to their program or take them down? I suppose the smart thing to do would be take them down immediately and forget it, move on, and find another company to promote or stick to Amazon products. So far I have decided to leave the posts, mostly because removing them would leave some big holes in my blog. I liked their stuff and their promotional pictures and videos so I think at least in the short term they can stay, if I send them some free traffic well....what the heck, I learned a lesson...don't put all your eggs in one affilate basket....

Evaluating Widgetbucks

2008-07-07T13:15:00.001-07:00

I'm more than a little disappointed in the return I seem to be getting from
WidgetBucks
I've had their widgets and ads on several of my sites now for a few months and seem to be having trouble to get over a buck or two in revenue. I think I wrote about this before, even threatening to take the code out of my blogs and move on, but decided I would ride it out a little longer and see what happens. Well...I did...and nothing happened. At least nothing positive.

So now it comes down to the value of my real estate, in this case the real estate being the space on my blogs. It has some value, perhaps not as much as some of the bigger bloggers, but nonetheless, everytime someone reads my blogs they also see the advertisements. Whether they click on them or not is another thing. The problem is, you can fill your real estate up with stuff that has little or no return and in effect, waste the space. That's what seems to be happening with my widgetbucks. I am showing the ads for no return, or not enough to make showing them worth my while. At the same time they might be distracting my readers away from ads that do pay, or affiliate products that sell.

That's what channels and tracking ad performance is for and why it is so important. It's not as simple as writing a few posts and sticking some code in there beside it then waiting for the money to roll in. It's about figuring out what works and doing more of that, it's about not wasting space with products or advertisments that don't convert one way or the other.

I pay pretty close attention to the ads on my blogs and the affiliate sales from products that I promote. If they aren't showing me some return, at least the equivalent to the other ads, then I have to question the value of having them on my blogs. Much better to point readers to Adsense or Amazon, or Clickbank, programs that for me have been working. I can use the Widgetbucks space to promote another one of my blogs or for an affiliate product that might result in a commission from a sale.

In the meantime, I will look for something to possibly replace Widgetbucks. One thing I have found is there are an endless array of affiliate and ppc programs out there, it is just a matter of finding the ones that work the best for your particular enterprise. I am not suggesting that Widgetbucks won't work for you, in fact, it might be work great for you. It just didn't seem to payoff for me. If you're not familiar with WidgetBucks give them a try, it doesn't cost anything to sign up and the widgets are cool. You can adjust them to display content related to your blog posts etc, which is nice.
Click Here to try WidgetBucks on your blog.

I'd love to hear from other bloggers who have tried Widgetbucks, I'd love to know if it is just me.....

SiteBuilder Elite

2008-06-19T05:59:00.000-07:00

My Adsense earnings are up! Yes! That is what I have been striving to see for so long, and finally, after I dunno, about two years anyway, probably three, I am starting to see some returns of note. Now, I am still not able to quit my day job, but I'm getting there. If nothing else, if this continues as it has been going, by the time I retire in about 3 years I should have a decent income to supplement my retirement pension. In fact, my plan is to make enough to not even realize I no longer have a day job.

Instead I will have a nice work at home job...blogging....only need to work about 12-14 hours a day....just kiddding....I hope...*wink*

Since my earnings have started to go up, and I might add, most of it coming from only two of the 40 or 50 blogs I have, I am wondering if it is time to move away from the blogging platform into more of a website system. It seems to me that websites do better in terms of income, even though blogs are more or less a website, there seems to be something to having an actual website. Of course, websites usually mean you have to spend money on domains and hosting etc, something that is not necessary with a blog. However, if the website is making money, and you can cover your costs as well as make an income, well...there is no harm no foul. If you can make more money than blogging...well I rest my case.

Just like blogging, the secret to making money lies in diversification of income streams and having multiple websites. If your blog is making you 35 cents a day, ten blogs should make $3.50 and 100 blogs should make $35.00 a day and so on. But how to manage all those blogs or websites?

That's where something like Gary Nugent's system, called SiteBuilder Elite comes in to play. Gary has a process (actually some software) to help you build potentially hundreds of websites where you can place you Adsense code, Amazon products and other affiliate programs to make money. Of course, with a hundred websites your chances of earning a substantial income is increased.

Now don't get me wrong, Gary's system is not where you buy 100, 200 or 300 Adsense ready websites, although that is another route that you can take, with Gary's system, you need to build your own websites, but Gary's software makes that easy. Probably a lot easier than trying to write 100 or more unique blog posts a day...whew! But Gary does show you how to create websites that will earn you money.

I have looked at a lot of these systems over the past few years, and some of them seem quite attractive, and Gary Nugent is certainly not the only game in town, but, his system does seem to be inexpensive, and judging from his sample websites, I think they just might work. You need to know a little about websites, design etc, for things like building a blog header, but otherwise if you follow his process I think a beginner could start creating valuable websites in no time at all.

If you are interested in a system like this, I suggest you have a look at what Gary Nugent has to offer you from SiteBuilder Elite System You can purchase Gary's software immediately and start on your way to owning a virtual real estate empire today. I think he also has some bonus offers on the go as well if you are ordering right now.
------------------------------------
If you are interested in buying websites all ready to start earning you money, you might be interested in AdsenseReady This is an opportunity to buy 150 websites all ready for your Adsense code. Although I am not saying that this is not a good way to go, I am saying it may be more work than it sounds, and may not be as lucrative as it sounds. Personally I like the SiteBuilder Elite System better.

Selling Advertising

2008-06-04T14:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I cannot help but think that pay per click or ppc advertising as it's called is actually the reason why bloggers are not making much money. Sure, these programs do make copious amounts of money for some bloggers and website owners, but many of us only make chicken feed from ppc ads.

Think about ppc for a minute, if the process of getting paid based on an action, i.e. clicking a link or visiting a website advertised on the blog, didn't exist, advertisers would probably have to resort to paying a set amount to advertise on a website. There are blogs and websites that do this now, but ppc programs are the most common, and I suspect the most popular with advertisers. Gone are the days when an advertiser paid based on circulation or visitor numbers, happy to get the name of their company or product in front of readers, much like television, newspaper, magazine or billboard and radio advertising. For internet ads, advertisers don't want to pay unless we can prove, through their visitor statistics, that the visitor went to their site, they don't pay.

Think about that for a second....ok....finished? If a car dealership runs a television advertisement for example, the television network gets paid regardless of whether or not one or one million visitors visit the car dealership and/or buy a car. Traditional media publishers etc, are not easily held accountable for whether or not their advertisements are working. Sure, the advertiser can monitor their sales, but it can be difficult to say for sure that business has increased because of an advertisement. Particularly if ads are running in several different media at the same time.

Website owners and bloggers don't have this luxury. We are relegated to trying to get our readers to do something, hoping they visit our advertisers or buy something because that is the only way we get paid.

There are some internet advertising companies, like Adengage and Text Link Ads, which do have a provision to allow the advertiser to pay a fixed amount to run an ad on a specific site, but it's still not the same thing. Advertisers have the ability to monitor clicks and measure the exact effectiveness of the ads, dropping those publishers who don't deliver. However, lots of advertising is not about an end result in terms of visits or sales, some of it is strictly to get the name out there, to make people aware of them.

That is the kind of advertising that prpbably makes the most money. All you as the publisher has to do is make sure you get decent traffic and you should be able to make money for each space you sell on your site. Think about it, if all internet advertising worked like that, we might be in a very different business....

That said, I am seriously considering changing my advertising to this kind of process, selling space myself, keeping all the money, and cranking the price up as my visitor statistics go up.

So....wanna be the first to advertise on Jack Parkers Make Money Blogging???

Blog Monetization Strategy Continued....

2008-06-04T13:35:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am rethinking my blog monetization strategy. After several years at this you'd think I would be getting pretty good at it, but the money, although better than when I started, is still not exactly coming in by the bucketload.

My philosophy to now has been to put monetization products up on my blogs and let them go, checking in periodically but seldom taking them down even if they are not earning money. I tend to think that somehow, eventually they will start to make me money. However...they don't. Occasionally I will try to experiment with their placement or widget style etc, but for the most part I put up a widget or ad block that I like, and that is pretty much the end of it.

The problem is, that means I end up with a lot of 'junk' on my sites that are taking up valuable space, and perhaps distracting my readers from something that might make me a little money. Blog space is more or less limited, and if something isn't giving a return, at least comparable with the other monetization strategies etc, you have to wonder if it is worth it. These extra widgets and ads tend to clog up the blogs and probably act as more of a distraction than anything else. It may also mean that returns are being diluted somewhat as clicks and purchases are spread out over several products instead of focused on one or two. Because revenue often depends on the number of clicks, it can take a long time to make the minimum amount that gets you a paycheck.

I have been learning from having my Adsense ads recorded using the 'channels' option, which I have found to be helpful in terms of learning about placement and to a lesser extent widget style. Using the channel option has also been useful in showing me exactly which of my blogs are making money and which ones are not. I have also started maintaining a hand written record book where I record the amount of money I make from each of my monetization strategies each month. I also record the amount of each cheque I recieve each month.

Recording my earnings has been very enlightening as I am seeing clearly which products and strategies are making money. This was something I only thought I knew until I started tracking it on paper. The results kind of surprised me, although my top producer is still Adsense, some of the ones that I thought were doing the best are actually not that hot.

ReThinking My Blog Monetization Strategy

2008-05-19T20:29:00.000-07:00

Hi and Thanks for taking a few minutes to drop by. I appreciate it....does that sound a little too um...'slurpy' or something? I really am glad you dropped, by, and I really appreciate you reading my blog but...well...what they heck, I said it now....

Well I have been watching the results of my entry into the WidgetBucks Program and to tell the truth I have been a little less than impressed. So far after a month or so, I have made pennies...not the return I had hoped for. Of course when do we bloggers actually get the returns we hope for? However, this is less than acceptable so far.

So what to do? Well, I am watching it closely, and I have to admit, I haven't really spent the time I should to try and tweak things a bit, maybe some different widgets, maybe revisit the keywords I am using etc. However, I am not really all that keen on doing all the work in terms of advertisments on my websites. I have enough to do to keep the blogs written and up to date without spending all my time worrying about the advertisements. I'm thinking hard about that kind of thing these days. I mean, how long can a person keep doing something over and over without making some money?

But like most blog monetization programs, it isn't enough to add the widget, and then forget about it. All of these things take time and they take some tweaking to find the best combination for your blog or website. I do the same with Adsense and the other programs I use, but that takes so much time it cuts down on the time I have to write. I suppose if I was big enough I could hire someone to handle that aspect of the business, and I could concentrate on the writing. A bloggers dream....

So WidgetBucks hasn't performed as I had hoped, but neither are some of my other programs. It takes a lot of posts and a lot of hits to those posts to make much return, and I shoulder some of the blame myself for not finding enough visitors yet. However, I have had a few and when you see that a number of hits is only returning pennies...well...it is cause for concern. Are those hits to a non-performing ad, or low paying ad, taking away better paying results from programs like Adsense or Amazon? That is the 64 dollar question isn't it? How many ad programs does a blog need to make money, and how many is too many? It's quite possible that I have over done it on some of my sites, showing too many ads to make anything pay well.

On the other hand, I do have a few things on the go that are making a bit of a return, one of them is Amazon, where sales have picked up fairly well in the last few months, making me wonder if that might be the way to go. My Amazon sales got off to a slow start in the beginning, but have be steadily increasing over time. That's partially because I have more posts and more products and partially because I have a bit of an Amazon system that I use, which is getting the products out there and people are buying some stuff. It's not life changing money, but it is money. Besides that, it is kind of fun to try and sell actual products instead of just advertising space. Kind of the intangible versus the tangible.

There is a bit more effort to promoting Amazon in a way that gets sales, but on the other hand, one sale is often worth many times more than a few pennies....

Perhaps it's time for a rethink.....should I be using more space on my blogs for Amazon and less for some of the other programs that don't seem to be performing, or do I wait a while and see if the newer programs catch on?

I think I will sleep on it.....

New Adsense Search Features

2008-05-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon the new Adsense Search features almost by accident. I was in my Adsense account setting up some code for a new blog, when I discovered the changes that the folks at Google had made to their search box features.

I gotta say I like it. Now you can set up a search box, and have the ads open up as part of your page, and lots of them too. I tested this new blog feature on several of my blogs, and although it's too soon to tell if it works in terms of earning money from the blogs, I cannot see how it won't provided my readers decide to enter a search term on the blog.

The only thing I don't like is that it does take away from readers searching my own blog for specific posts, but it' a trade off. For one thing, I would prefer they search for something that will lead them to an ad they can click on which will in turn earn me some money as opposed to searching for something that might lead to another post on my blog. They would still have to react to one of my ads in order for me to make any income from that search. So, on the blogs where I am running the new Adsense search feature, I have removed the other search box that was internal to my site. Too many search boxes, like too many of anything might be confusing. Can't have my readers confused....

If you aren't running the new Adsense for Search box on your site, what's stopping ya?

Time Magazine's Top 100 Influential People Includes Michael Arrington

2008-05-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

Every once and awhile I come across something that gives me a little push, a little encouragement to keep blogging. Today it was the discovery that Michael Arrington, a former corporate lawyer, who is now a blogger has become one of the most influential people on the internet. Michael has been named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People On The Internet. Arlington's blog is called TechCrunch perhaps you've heard of it....

Two other fellas...of interest to us as bloggers, and who have also made the list of acknowledgement with Arrington are Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, and Jay Adelson, (CEO of DIGG)

Arrington, Bezos, and Adelson, come to this title under the Builders and Titans category and are among other such notables as Jeffrey Immelt, (CEO of GE) Karl Lagerfeld, (Fashion), Rupert Murdock, (newspaper publisher), Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, (America's biggest foreign investor) Catherine Roitfeld (Editor in Chief, French Vogue magazine), Jamie Dimon, (Wall Street, JPMorgan Chase) Steve Ballmer, (CEO Microsoft) Cynthia Carroll, (CEO Anglo American, mining) Ratan Tata, (Indian automaker), Mo Ibrahim, (African democracy advocate, cell phones, Mo Ibrahim Prize For Achievement In African Leadership) Lou Jiwei, (Chinese investor) Neelie Kroes,(EU Commissioner for Competition), Ali al-Naimi (Saudi Arabia Oil Minister) There are more, if you want to read the entire list, go to Time or pick up a copy of the magazine.

Not to take away from the accomplishments of any of the others, but I think it is important that Michael Arrington in particular made this list. Everytime something like this happens, everytime blogging gets mentioned in these kind of contexts, the business, or the "Art" we call blogging, gets legitimized a little more.

Blogging fits into what is really the current big thing on the web, it's called Web 2.0 and refers to things like blogs, interactive websites, social bookmarking sites like DIGG and Delicious, etc. It's the interaction with the readers that makes Web 2.0 what it has become. There's more to Web 2.0 than blogging, trust me, you will be hearing more about it as that title goes more mainstream, but remember blogging is heart and soul Web 2.0

With that in mind, I am going to reinstate the "comments" on Jack Parker's Make Money Blogging, I had turned them off because of spammers, but what the heck, I guess I will use comment moderation to deal with those.

Take heart my blogger buddies, someday maybe we will be listed in Time's top 100! Maybe we will make up the entire list.....

WidgetBucks

2008-04-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

The astute among you...that's you...will notice that I have added a new widget to my sidebar and a banner advertisment at the bottom of the page. That's because I have come across another program that promises to help me make money blogging. It's called WidgetBucks and it seems pretty cool so far.

WidgetBucks is easy to use, and has lots of options, lots of banners and advertisements that are easily customized to fit your particular blog or website. What's more, the products seem to be pretty decent, and the ads themselves look good on my pages. I have added them to several of my blogs, in what was probably less than an hour. In fact, the entire process, from signup to approval to adding the code to my pages took less than an hour.

According to their information here's how you make money with WidgetBucks:
1) PPC, or Pay-Per-Click ads. Each time a user from the U.S. or Canada clicks on a WidgetBucks ad widget on your site, you get paid.
2) CPM, or Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions. When a user from outside the U.S. and Canada views one of your pages that contains a CPM ad from one of WidgetBucks' ad partners, you earn revenue.
3) Referrals. When you refer a new WidgetBucks user, you will receive a 5 percent referral fee based on the commissions earned by the people you refer. You'll receive this 5 percent for the full 12 months after the new member joins.

WidgetBucks look like they will work good on my niche blogs in particular, as they have a feature, not unlike Adsense whereby they crawl your pages and determine what your blog or website is about, and then match products to your subject matter. Or, you can choose your own topics etc and set it up from the get go with several to choose from.

I have to admit, I did find the list of potential subjects a little limiting in one respect, but that might just be me, so I chose to let WidgetBucks decide what would be appropriate for my pages. I'll try that for a little while, and maybe experiment, depending on how it goes.

It's a little early for me to recommend WidgetBucks so I won't, but if I were you.....I'd sign up!!It's free and it's easy!!

Sunday Ramblings

2008-04-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

I've been doing quite a bit better with my Amazon affiliate sales lately. I'm not exactly sure why, other than the idea that over time I have built up quite a few posts that feature Amazon products.

The funny thing is, most of the items that I feature are not the ones that I am ultimately selling....leading me to believe that I don't have a very good handle on what people are buying. The stuff I sell...well...it's just not what I would expect. I'm not complaining though, it's still a sale and it's still money in my pocket.

I don't know, it seems like ever since my meltdown, where I wrote the post saying that the bottom was out of the blogging business, it seems to have picked up....go figure....

So instead of throwing in the towel and getting ready to enjoy summer, I have stepped up my blogging efforts.

I'm not going to write much here today, as I have a couple of other commitments going on at the same time. But I am going to leave you with a reminder of one of the key secrets to making money from websites....traffic...you need traffic...that is all there is to it...find out how to get traffic, visitors to your blog or website, and you can sit back and watch the money roll in....of course as soon as you figure out how to get qualified, converting, traffic to your site and lots of it...please tell me.....

Adsense Channels - You Need Them

2008-03-23T11:37:00.001-07:00

Even though I figured in my last post that the 'bottom was outta her' I haven't decided to quit yet, just taking some deep breathes and building up my resolve to make some money blogging, even if it kills me....and it just might....

Lately I have started using channels for my Adsense ads running on my sites. It's taking some time to convert them all over, but I'm getting there. When I began blogging, with only a couple of blogs, I really didn't see much point of bothering to set up channels to track them. However, now with more and more blogs to my credit, channels have become more important.

If you're not using channels you should be. That's about the end of it really. Channels tell you exactly where you Adsense revenue is coming from. What sites, and what ad blocks. This is so useful for determining the best ad placement, as well as the colors and design. It also says which blogs are earning money, and which ones aren't. That means I can decide which blogs to drop, or, tweak, for better CTR and revenue.

In the week or so that I have started using channels I have discovered my three top money earning blogs, and the ad blocks that are earning the money. I've even played around with placement a bit, and design. It's far too soon to start changing too much, but by reviewing the channel information,. I am getting a good idea.

Realizing that it's too soon to be definitive, I am finding something that I hadn't expected. Out of three ad block placements on one of my blogs, there is no clear leader between the three placements, which surprised me. I have read that sidebar ads don't usually perform as well as ads placed above or below the content. That is probably true, but I have one blog where the sidebar ads are working every bit as good as the other ones. Go figure. I'm actually kind of happy about that, because for some reason, I like sidebar ads....

But back to channels...if you are running adsense on your blog, and not channels, you need to go back and set up the channels now. It's a bit of work. It seems you cannot set them up in a Blogger blog using the widget for adding adsense from the layout page. Instead you have to set up the ad block and channels in your Adsense account and then copy and paste the code into the HTML widget. Works just as good, but not quite as easy.

But I believe it's worth the trouble for the information you learn from them. So, let me say it one more time, regardless of whether or not you are making money on your blog or website now, you need to create channels for your Adsense contextual advertisments.

Convinced?

The Bottom's Outta Her !!

2008-03-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

I apologize because this is more of a rant than a helpful post, but sometimes ya just gotta let it out....man this is a tough way to make a buck...The hours that I invest in trying to make money blogging is out of this world, and most of the time, I make pennies.

The worst of it is, I am having trouble to make sense of it. Last week I had one of my biggest yet as far as Adsense revenue, and for that matter, this month looked like it was going to be good, between Adsense, Adengage, Clickbank and Amazon. Still not quit your day job money, but money nonetheless.

However, the past two days have taken a downturn with a bullet. As they say around here, "the bottom's outta her" which I think refers to boats, but is also a very accurate picture of my blog revenues...the bottoms out and I seem to have fallen threw it....

Of course I know that this is only a temporary glitch, at least I sure hope so, if it isn't I gotta find something else to do with 10 hours a day of my time. Thank heavens I didn't borrow any money based on my blog income.

Maybe this is a good wakeup call, to remind me that making money is not the only reason I have a blog(s). The other reasons include entertaining people, having a voice, and writing for the sheer joy of it. A couple of my blogs make me little or no income, but I still write to the regularly, mainly because I love the topics they cover, and feel I have something to say about them.

I'm not ready to quit just yet, although sometimes I must admit the idea sounds attractive at times. I can't help but be bothered by the idea that if I wasn't spending so much of my time blogging, I might be doing something else that makes money, like selling real estate, painting pictures, writing books or magazine articles, or working as a Walmart greeter....

It's during these times, when the money seems elusive dispite the number of visits I get, that I find myself questioning things. It's also times like this that I use to turn my questions around and try to find out why or explore new ways of doing things. It's hard to make major changes to your blog format or advertisments when you are making money from them. There is a reluctance to change anything for fear it might screw up a good thing. But now, with the bottom out of her....well...it might be time....