Net Hustlin' | Tips to Make Money Online

Get More Blog Exposure and Make Money

2008-05-15T04:23:00.000-07:00

There is a new site called Yearblook, which is an ongoing contest to find the best blog posts. At the end of the year the winners of the contest will be included in a book that features the best blog posts for every day of the year. Rules of entry are explained in their FAQ:

How it works

1. Bloggers submit their posts - using the simple form here
2. Readers cast votes for their favorites
3. We run an algorithm to figure out which is the best post
4. The best from each day is added to the book

Each month, the post with the most votes will also win $100. So not only do you get exposure to your blog, but you also have an opportunity to make money for your posts.

This can be a great opportunity to get recognition for what really counts - the quality of your content. There are many contests for design and SEO but not for content creation. Hopefully this will help reward the bloggers who have been working hard at what they do.

Give Advice and Make Money on E-Notes

2008-05-13T23:46:00.001-07:00

Enotes, the popular learning resource for students is constantly hiring new contributors to their site. According to the introduction on their editor application, they are looking for contributors to do the following things:

* Answer questions from students and teachers in our Question and Answer areas.
* Moderate and contribute to discussion boards.
* Contribute original content to our study guides and lesson plans.

They don't state how much they pay on the website. I have used the question and answer section for research a few times in the past. I have been given good advice from the contributors and every contributor was professional and thorough in their responses. Therefore, I assume that they are comfortable in what they are making if they are putting so much time into their responses. (More pay usually equals better service, right?)

For everyone who loves academics and enjoys giving advice this is also an opportunity to do something that is fun. They have various topics you can contribute to - literature, science, law, health, and history just to name a few. So you can find the topic you enjoy and give advice in that field.

Four Places to Sell Your Art Online

2008-02-23T09:16:00.000-08:00

There are so many artists today that it can be hard to distinguish yourself and make a real income. However, selling artwork online is easier and more flexible than it has ever been. There are now dozens of sites that will host your art while helping you to promote yourself. Here are a few that have stood out to me because of their good site design, high traffic, and quality of art that is hosted:

Art Break - In my opinion this is one of the best sites to sell your artwork. Sign up is free and you get a virtual store where you can host your art. They host everything from oil paintings to screen printed t-shirts. They charge a 7.5% sales fee when a transaction between the buyer and seller is made. All other profits go directly to you.

Etsy - Etsy is one of the most popular art sites, bringing in thousands of buyers every day. They sell mostly crafts and clothes on the site, but there are also opportunities for painters and drawers. It is free to set up a store on Etsy and they often feature artists on their home page. They charge a 3.5% sales fee which is considerably lower than most other art sites.

Ebay - Ebay has the largest market of buyers for arts and crafts online. It also has the largest number of artists selling their work. It can be a competitive place, but there is still room for new artists to emerge if they have the talent and dedication.

Before you set up an auction you should look at popular artists and find out what they are doing right. Look at the titles and descriptions of the auctions, the categories they put them into, and the starting bids and bidding trends. This will give you an idea of what works on eBay, and how you can also succeed.

Boundless Gallery - Boundless Gallery is newer and has less traffic than the previous sites I mentioned, but it struck me with its clean design and high-quality artwork. Its design lets the customers chose by color, size, and price, and its high-quality graphics showcase the art nicely. They charge $5 a month for hosting. Right now they are having a trial-period where you can set up a store for free.

Please excuse the look of my blog...

2008-01-17T17:10:00.001-08:00

The custom template I had on this blog for a few months is now giving me an error and keeping people from accessing my site.

This apparently is a pretty big problem lately, after looking through the Blogspot groups I saw at least 10 others who are having this problem. I think it's about time to switch to Wordpress.

So I'm going to see how it works out for now, if it doesn't get fixed soon I will be switching to Wordpress. Thanks for your patience.

Design Wordpress Themes For Money

2008-01-15T13:03:00.000-08:00

I have been a member of the webmaster forums Digital Point for about a year, and I've seen hundreds of different ways people make money on there. One of the most profitable ways is designing Wordpress themes and selling sponsor links on the footer.

While I don't condone selling links, I don't condemn it. I think selling sponsor links on Wordpress themes is great for both parties. You get money for designing the theme and the link buyers get an unlimited amount of links from anyone who uploads the theme to their blog.

The themes that make the most money are the ones that look the best. Some really good themes will make up to $90 per link. An average looking theme will usually get between $15-$30.

To make the most money you should come up with an original design that has mass appeal, then post it on Digital Point with 3-4 link slots for sale. Usually there are 3 sponsor links for sale and one designer link, all in the footer.

After selling the links you should promote the theme to popular Wordpress theme sites. Here are a few examples:

http://www.themetube.com
http://www.wpskins.org/
http://themebot.com/

You can find similar sites by doing a Google search for Wordpress themes.

The amount of sites you promote to and the originality of the theme will all factor into how much money you can make. This can be a fun and creative way to make some extra cash and to test your marketing skills.

Publish Your Books Online - For Free

2008-01-10T12:22:00.001-08:00

There is a great little site called Lulu that offers free self-publishing to everyone who signs up. It's similar to Cafepress in that you make your own products on the site and sell them through your online store on Lulu. The difference is that Lulu only deals with books - whether it be novels, text books, art books - even calenders.

When you sell on Lulu it's up to you to get the sales for your books. They don't distribute the books to major stores, they just print them and ship them out when a book is ordered off the site. This service is free to everyone, they just take a percentage of the book's cover price to cover the costs of shipping and printing.

If you want to make money selling your books on Lulu you should probably have a blog or another way to get your name out there. By setting up a blog people can sample your writing and it will give you a platform to promote your book.

If you really want to get your word out there you can take advantage of their marketing services, which includes press release services, advertising, and public relations, but keep in mind that their marketing services cost money and there are many free ways to advertise online.

If you are very serious about your writing and plan on making it your full time job, you should look into traditional publishing before you set up an account on Lulu. However if you want a hassle-free way of getting your word out there without the costs of traditional publishing, Lulu is probably the way to go.

Make Money Uploading Youtube Videos

2007-12-20T18:05:00.000-08:00

Youtube started a new program this month where you can make money when you upload your videos. The program, called the "partner program," will give you a share of the money from ads that are featured on your video.

The reason Youtube is doing this is because they're legally not allowed to put advertising on copyrighted-content. To put ads on a video they first have to get permission from the copyright holder. Therefore, by entering the partner program, you give them permission to put ads on your video and they will give you a share of the money that's made.

Here is an example of the ads that appear on partner videos (its the text at the bottom):

Since Youtube videos have the potential to reach millions of viewers this can be very lucrative for the big names on Youtube. It may also be a good reason to take out your camera and start using Youtube if you haven't already.

Here are the requirements for the program:

You must own the copyrights and distribution rights for all videos you upload.
You must regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of Youtube users.
You must live in the US or Canada.

If you meet these requirements, you can apply now and start making money off your videos. If you live outside of North America, keep your eyes open because they will probably be expanding the program in the near future.

Win a $250 Amazon Gift Voucher from John Cow

2007-12-19T02:13:00.000-08:00

John Cow is giving away a $250 Amazon gift card in his new blog contest. The contest ends tomorrow (i'm a little late to the game) but there's still time to enter if you act soon.

The contest being sponsored by Adtoll, a relatively new internet advertising network. Adtoll has great click-through-rates and competitive rates. They also have affiliate ads with up to 20% commission. I will definitely be looking into their service in the future.

To join the contest just head over to John Cow's blog after you follow the contest rules.

The rules are pretty simple:

1. You must write about the contest and link to the contest and the sponsor. The post must be at least 200 words

2. Stumble Upon (with a review) John Cow's blog, Adtoll, and your blog post

3. Take a screenshot of your Stumble Profile with all 3 stumble reviews

4. Leave a comment with a link to the screenshot

This contest is in perfect timing because we all need a little extra cash around the holiday season. There are a few gifts I can think to buy with the extra money it would give me. It would also be the easiest $250 I ever made if I won. :)

Become an Online Tutor

2007-12-18T14:12:00.001-08:00

You can get paid to tutor students online on Tutor.com.

You can become a tutor if you have graduated from a college or are currently enrolled in a college. This is good because it's a way for college students to earn an extra income while they're in school. You can work right in the major your studying in - by tutoring kids in math, history, English, etc.

The tutoring is one-on-one and is done through an instant-messaging program which has an interactive white-board and a file-sharing program built right in. The students range in age from 4th grade level up to the college level.

They pay by the hour and send a check out every month. They don't say how much they pay on the site, but you can find out more about their wages after you fill out an application. If you want to know more check out the FAQ which will answer a lot of your questions.

Make Money For Your Craft Projects

2007-12-13T01:08:00.000-08:00

If you are into crafts, you can sell your do-it-yourself projects on the site Etsy. This site is pretty big and has a lot of great items for sale. There are handmade books and zines, toys, drawings, clothing, and more.

If you Google "sell handmade products," you will see other craft sites where you can sell your items, but they seem to have little traffic. Etsy is great because it actually has a lot of traffic and a large user base, all of whom are interested in buying hand-made crafts.

I came across this site when I was looking for sites where you can sell drawings online. I was surprised to see the high of quality art and other crafts they have here. This looks like a great way to make money and possibly turn a hobby into a career.

How to Avoid Common eBay Mistakes

2007-12-06T14:49:00.000-08:00

Many first time eBay sellers have one thing in common – they fail. Many sellers will fail again and again, without understanding what they did wrong. They will do hours of research looking for the perfect item, set the auction up, and wait for the bidding to begin. Days will go by without one bid being placed, or if a bid is placed it is very low. Finally when the auction ends they make a fraction of the cost of the item. There is a lot of competition on e-bay so if you don’t want this to happen to you, you have to do specific things to keep up with the competition, and learn why most auctions fail.

There are a lot of reasons why most auctions fail, the most common reason being that the item is not in high demand. Before you list an item on e-bay, consider how many times it is already listed. Research the item and see what the other sellers are making off of it. You may also want to Google the item and see if any forums or blogs are mentioning this item. The research may take a great deal of time – but in the end, you will find that it is time well spent.

Another reason for eBay failure is pricing. No matter what your selling or what your reserve price may be, your opening bid should never be over $50. This will attract more bidders to your auction, because if you set the price to high, potential buyers won’t even click the link to read your description. You want to draw them in first to your auction with a low price, and let the bidding naturally go higher. Another problem related to pricing is lack of research. Before you set your price, make sure your item is really worth the money you want for it. Also look at other auctions and see what the final bids are at those auctions.

Once you have avoided the mistakes mentioned above, one of the most important things you want to do is to write your description carefully. Your eBay auction page is a free advertisement for your item – you want to make it alluring and interesting to the potential bidders. Don’t misspell words and post a quality picture that will draw people in. This essentially your “sales copy,” so make it good.

Finally, getting great customer feedback will speak for you more than anything else you can do. If you have a great description of an item up for bid, a 100% positive feedback score will give that buyer trust in your description and seal the deal. Always give the best customer service you can offer, and don't be afraid to ask your customers to mention your excellent service in their feedback. If you do have a problem and get a negative score, eBay allows buyers and sellers to retract their negative scores, so you should work fast to resolve the issue with the buyer.

If you follow these simple steps you can make money online selling items through eBay. Many people have been successful on eBay – all it takes avoiding common mistakes and being creative.

How to Make Money on Myspace

2007-11-23T18:19:00.000-08:00

There is a growing demand for advertising on social networking websites. The biggest site out there is Myspace, so the demand for Myspace profiles, friends, and advertising is larger than ever. Here are a few ways you can capitalize on Myspace and make money online.

Sell Profiles
Myspace profiles are usually bought on webmaster forums and through e-bay. There are legitimate webmasters and bloggers who buy Myspace profiles to get more exposure for their sites, but there are also a lot of spammers, so you may want to keep that in mind if you want to do this.

The going rate for profiles is $9 per 1,000 friends. This may seem like nothing, especially if you add friends manually, but there are ways to get a lot of friends in a short period of time. Here are a few ways you can build up your friend count:

Friend trains - Friend trains are sites where people post their profile after adding all the profiles on the site. This will get you a lot of friend requests and its a much faster way to add friends.

Bots - There are bots, or "myspace friend adders," that can make up to 500 friend requests an hour. Some of them cost money while others are free. If you Google "Myspace friend adder" you can find downloadable bots that will get you friends in no time.

Back-up profiles -After using bots and friend trains, you'll want to create a few "back-up" profiles. You can promote these profiles by posting bulletins that ask your friends to add your back-up. This way you don't have to spend hours on a train to get friend requests - all your friends will come to you.

You can also make money online by selling old Myspace profiles. Old profiles have less security measures (e.g. the captcha). They also show up higher on friend pages, which gives them more exposure and ultimately more friends. You can get old profiles by contacting your friends and family who have unused profiles they made in the past. This also includes bands on Myspace that broke up recently.

The best profiles have less than 5 digits in their friend ID. The smaller the friend ID number, the more valuable the profile is. You can find the friend ID by looking at the URL on the picture page:

Post Bulletins
If you have a lot of Myspace friends but you're not ready to sell your profile, you can try posting bulletins. Most bulletins are sold as package deals (e.g. "3 bulletins a day for 5 days a week). The prices can range anywhere from $5 a week to $50 a week depending on the number of friends you have.

You can post your services on a webmaster forum such as Digital Point. You can also contact websites who would want your services such as Myspace layout sites, friend train sites, and clothing companies.

Promote Your Site or Company

If you have a website, why promote someone else's site when you can promote your own? Many advertisers have found Myspace to be an effective way of getting new customers.

Before you do anything else, you should make sure your site or company is compatible with the average Myspace user. Most people on Myspace have a short attention span when they're online and want to be entertained instead of informed. The best sites to promote are gaming sites, college-humor sites, layout sites, and contests.

If your business fits this description your profile should reflect that. Your profile should be laid-back, personal, and interesting. Some companies fail at marketing on Myspace because they will put a flower or stock-image on their profile instead of a person. This defeats the purpose of Myspace which is a social networking site. Two of the most important things you can do is to use a real person's picture and a real name on your profile. This will give you a human quality and come off less like spam. You can read more tips about MS marketing on Buzz Networker.

After crafting your profile, one common way to get site exposure is to hold a contest. The contest doesn't have to have a cash award. Many t-shirt sites have contests for site models, and most friend-train sites have contests for a weekly position at the top of the train.

Post about the contest in your blog and encourage people to comment. If the post makes it to the top blogs section you will get infinitely more exposure. The top blogs are the ones with the most comments and hits for that day.

You can also make a group for your site, post bulletins, comments, and messages. If you plan on posting comments and messages make sure to be professional about it and don't spam. Most people on Myspace are immune to spam and will delete it without a second glance - you can also get banned.

You're already on MySpace 12 hours a day, but are you making money? If you're just waiting for some income to fill out that credit card application, making money online is a great alternative. If you set up your own little business, you'd even be able to apply for business credit cards or a useful and no-frills low interest credit card.

How to Sell News Images Online

2007-11-14T16:46:00.000-08:00

To be a freelance photojournalist you need to have a lot of luck. You have to be in the right place at the right time when breaking news happens. If you have the opportunity to get pictures of a breaking news event or pictures of celebrities you will probably want to sell them.

There are two places online that you can sell your news pictures for money:

Citizen Image is a site that sells news images directly to major newspapers and magazines. You can upload your pictures straight from your camera phone or through e-mail. After you do that they state that they will push your images on news outlets and try to help you get your images sold. Here is a list of the sales channels they push your photography to.

If your image sells they pay 50% of the final selling price to you through paypal. Their entire service is free and you never have to pay hosting or uploading fees.

Spy Media is similar to Citizen Image. They also push your pictures on major media outlets and try to help you get your photography sold. Unlike Citizen Image, which has set prices on images depending on their size, Spy Media allows you to sell them for whatever price you want.

Other than pictures of celebrities and news events you can also sell recent sports photography, so don't forget to bring your camera with you to sporting events.

Even though it takes a lot of luck to be successful in this line of work, it's a great opportunity to make money and get exposure for your photography.

Upload Vidoes for $10

2007-11-09T23:20:00.000-08:00

The site Funniest Stuff on the Net is giving away $10 to people who send in funny videos. According to the site:

This is not a contest, but a request for public submissions of video content.

For each video we receive and utilize on our site and newsletter, you will receive a $10 credit via PayPal's payment service. By submitting content you agree that you are ok with us using your name associated to the content unless you specifically request an alternative. [link]

This almost sounds too good to be true, but there's hardly anything to lose. If they don't pay, you won't lose rights to the video so you can just post it on a revenue-sharing video site. If they do, hey, thats the easiest 10 bucks ever. I'm going to try this soon and I'll let you know how it goes.

How to Make Money With Photoshop

2007-11-07T23:07:00.000-08:00

With the number of bloggers, webmasters, and digital photographers growing every day demand for graphic design and photo retouching is on the rise. Even if you've never used photoshop before there are thousands of tutorials on the subject to get you started if you are interested in doing this line of work. You can buy a cheap copy of photoshop on e-bay and go to sites such as Goodtutorials.com to learn the ropes of photoshop design.

Here are a few of the ways people are making money with photoshop:

Design logos and banners for webmasters.

As website competition heats up, everyone is looking for personalized graphics for their websites. There are many webmasters out there that aren't good at graphic design or just don't have the time for it. If you can do logo and banner design you'll want to get listed in design web directories so webmasters can find you. Here are a few sites where you can list your services:

http://www.getafreelancer.com
http://www.freelancedesigners.com
http://www.marketingtools.com

You can also find logo design contests in various webmaster forums. In the digital point forums buy sell or trade section there are always contests for logo and web design.

Participate in Contests

If you have creative and original ideas they can take you a long way in photoshop contests. Here are the most popular photoshop contest sites:

Photoshop Contest This site has ongoing contests with prizes such as DVDs and Ipods.

Worth 1000 One of the biggest photoshop contest sites. Hosts corporate contests with cash prizes that usually range from $50 - $500.

SitePoint Design Contests A popular forum with various photoshop contests for cash.

Do photo retouching

You can do photo-retouching for models and actresses, or just the average person looking to spice up their facebook profile. Photo retouching can be as simple as brightening a picture and removing blemishes and flyaway hairs. If you want to do this you should create your own website to look professional and let people find you. Here are two examples of popular photo-retouching websites:

Pic Wash This site has photo retouching starting at $7. Their target customer base appears to be teens and college students who need basic photo fixes. This is a great idea because it isn't just limited to fashion photographers and webmasters. Most people on Myspace or facebook can afford this service and probably find it useful.

Glenn Feron Here is an example of a professional photo-retouching site by the freelancer Glenn Feron. This site is geared toward models, actresses, and clothing designers. Prices start at $70 for a half-hour of work.

Design brushes and other tools that can be sold

Web designers and artists are always looking for new brushes to use. Unfortunately there are a lot available online for free. However there are people who make money selling high-quality brushes and textures. You can create a collection of high-resolution, high-quality brushes and sell them on your website or at forums.

Textures, actions and patterns aren't as popular as brushes but you can still build a good collection with them or add them to your collection of brushes. There is a lot of competition out there with designing brushes and textures but if you build a high-quality product you can be successful.

Make Money Playing World of Warcraft

2007-11-04T20:44:00.000-08:00

If you want to make money playing games your best bet is World of Warcraft. According to a report issued by Blizzard entertainment, World of Warcraft has over 9 million players. With numbers like that it is possible to capitalize on this market and make a lot of money in the process.

There are several ways that World of Warcraft players earn real money just by playing the game. Here are a few ways that people make money in World of Warcraft:

Power leveling

"Power Leveling" is raising the levels of a customer's virtual character. This service is in high demand and some people charge up to $500 to power level some ones character. Other people will charge $150-$200 to get someone from level 1 to 50 in a short amount of time. If you are an experienced player you can power level people's characters and make good money by just playing the game.

Selling WOW Accounts

People buy World of Warcraft accounts to bypass the lower levels of the game and play the more exciting higher levels. The accounts are sold through sites such as accounts.net, which has level 70 accounts priced up to $1,300. This has amazing profit potential if you are good at playing the game and can to the high levels fast.

Selling World of Warcraft Gold

The currency in World of Warcraft is called "gold," which can be bought and sold for real money. The usual exchange rate is 100 gold for up to $7. There are a lot of ways to make gold on World of Warcraft, including selling rare items, increasing skills in your professions, and mastering the auction house. Some players claim to make 200 gold in less than an hour. Here are a few guides on how to make gold on World of Warcraft quickly:

Chtulhu's Gold Making Guide

How to Make Money in World of Warcraft

Gold Farming 5 Tips

World of Warcraft Gold Tips for the Poor Leatherworker

If you already spend most of your time playing video games, why not make some money while you're at it! While the lure of credit card offers will be tempting once you're making money, hold off until you see the rewards or cash back credit cards that you really want. If you have good credit, airline credit cards could be in your future!

5 Ways to Make Money With PLR Articles

2007-10-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

PLR stands for "private label rights." When you buy a PLR article you usually will have full permission to use the article on your website, claim ownership of it, modify it, and sell it. PLR articles usually come in packages based on various keywords, e.g. 15 articles on e-bay marketing.

You can buy and sell PLR articles on e-bay or various webmaster forums such as Digital Point. Here are 5 ways you can make money with PLR articles.

1. Run a PLR Site Many ghostwriters have found success by running their own sites with a database of PLR articles. These sites usually have hundreds or thousands of PLR articles that can only be accessed with a membership fee. The most successful PLR sites will update their database weekly with new articles, and take the most downloaded articles off the site, so that the content is always fresh. Most PLR sites have a membership limit so that the articles aren't on thousands of sites across the internet. Some are so popular that they have waiting lists that are backed for months.

2. Re-write Articles You can re-write free PLR articles online and sell them on ebay or Digital Point. Selling original re-writes of PLR articles makes them more valuable because buyers don't run the risk of having duplicate content online. If you want to do this it's best to just sell the articles to one person without resell rights. Selling the articles to one buyer will allow you raise the price because they will be buying unique, original content that only they will own. The only difference between re-writing a PLR article and writing your own article is re-writing an article will probably save you time and energy.

3. Buy and Sell Article Packs This is probably one of the hardest things to do because there is a lot of competition. When you buy an article pack, everyone who owns the article pack already has the opportunity to sell it. The people who buy the pack from them will also have the opportunity to sell it, and so on and so forth. Before you know it there can be 1,000's of people online selling the same article pack. If you want to put your internet marketing skills to the test then this is the right thing for you.

4. Publish PLR Articles on a Blog Blogging can be profitable but it also can be time-consuming and costly. Some people opt to use PLR articles on their blogs and websites instead of hiring a writer or spending hours writing their own articles. The chance of owning a successful blog is unlikely if all of the articles are duplicate content. If you are thinking about doing this, try to mix original articles with PLR articles, and re-write some of the PLR articles. The Problem With Automated Content explains the importance of keeping the content on your site unique.

5. Use Free Articles as an Incentive Some webmasters give away free PLR articles as a bonus when you buy an e-book, subscription, or other products and services. This is one of the cheapest ways to give customers an extra incentive to buy your products. It can also make a decent gift for people who are subscribing to a newsletter or RSS feed.

If you are interested in free PLR articles, Get a Script has 6,500 articles which are free to use and redistribute. My favorite thing about the site is that you don't have to sign up or give your e-mail to download the articles.

If you are in the market to buy articles, the post Where to find good PLR articles lists dozens of PLR article sites online.

It's easy to make money online if you barter goods or services in exchange for cold hard cash. Get out a math work sheet to see if you're making enough money for the time you're investing. If you need help with math and numbers to see if you're breaking even, there are plenty of calculators and resources online to help you out.

Google Adwords Voucher and Other Coupons

2007-10-24T22:34:00.001-07:00

Most people overlook the value of using advertising coupons and internet offers to market their sites. In an attempt to get free advertising for my blog, I searched the web for advertising vouchers and other great deals. Here are some of the best coupons and vouchers I have found:

$50 Google Adwords Voucher

$50 in free adwords
Includes free activation fee
For new customers only
Expires 12/31/2007
US & Canada

$25 Yahoo Sponsored Search Credit

Requires a $30 nonrefundable deposit (the deposit will go toward your advertising)
New advertisers only
Expires 12/31/2007

$75 Microsoft Ad Center Voucher

Requires a $5 activation fee
New advertisers only
Expires 12/31/2007

Bidvertiser $20 in Free Clicks Coupon

No activation/setup fee
Open to new advertisers only

$100 Free Text-Link-Ads

Minimum purchase of $25 required
Open to new advertisers only

So far I have 5 vouchers with a combined value of $275. There is a total of $60 in activation fees/deposits, but if you consider the fact that most of that money goes into your account, you will be spending $60 on a total of $325 in advertising with these coupons. That is a lot of free advertising for your site!

If I find more I will be adding them to the list so please comment if you know about more offers. Thanks :)

Monetize Facebook Applications and Make Money

2007-10-24T19:03:00.000-07:00

In May 2007 Facebook opened its network to developers by allowing them to create applications. Ever since doing this over 1,000 developers have been signing up every day.

An application is anything you can put on your Facebook profile. For instance, there is a Feedburner application that allows you to display the most recent headlines from your Feedburner blogs and Podcasts on your profile.

According to Adonomics, an open analytics website that tracks Facebook applications, there have been 425,485,539 installs across 6,690 apps on Facebook.

Facebook applications can be monetized in any way you can imagine. The most popular way to monetize is selling ad space. Facebook applications that are popular can make good money by monetizing with Adbrite, Lookery, and Google Adsense.

You can also monetize through sponsorship. For instance, a music application can be sponsored by a record company or a game application can be sponsored by a gaming website.

The third way to monetize is by selling goods and services. For instance, you can create an app. that helps people find relevant e-bay auctions or tickets off ticketmaster. You can also create an application that has your own products and services.

As Facebook continues to rise in popularity so does the potential to make money. Facebook will probably soon overtake Myspace and its a good idea to be ahead of the curve before that happens.

Write Product Reviews for Money

2007-10-22T18:46:00.000-07:00

There is a website that will pay you $2 for every product review you create. Shared Reviews is a social media site where people share their reviews of company products. All you have to do is write a review with 750 characters and if it's approved you automatically get credited $2.

The great thing about this site is the product reviews don't have to go on your blog or website. In other words, it's not just a link sale like Pay Per Post. This is more geared toward making useful content for the site - which will help visitors who are looking for real reviews on products and services.

This is what the website is about:

We're changing the landscape of review-research by framing customizable, media-rich reviews, with meaningful profile data.

This adds the necessary clarity for users to be able to make informed decisions by not only reading the review, but also learning more about the person who wrote it.

If you enter my referral name "Crystalcash1" you get a free referral credit in your account - in other words you get $2 to start. You can cash out after your account hits $10.

Participate in a Blogging Survey for $150

2007-10-19T18:50:00.000-07:00

You can make $150.00 by participating in a blogging study. Here is Goodmind’s offer:

My name is Darrin and I work for Goodmind, a market research company in NYC. We?re currently looking for participants for a study on bloggers and social media writers. Participants must be active bloggers and post their own blog, blog for a company, or blog for business reasons. Participants will be paid a $150 incentive for the study, there is no purchase or sales involved, and it is entirely anonymous. Those that qualify will be asked to log into our software twice a day, for three days, each session comprising of about 15 minutes, or 90 minutes total. If you would like to participate, please reply to this email (darrin.lusk AT goodmind.net), or call us at 212-660-0110. If you?d like more information about us, you can visit our website at Goodmind.net. Thank you, and I look forward to heading from you!

This offer was first given to Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim which he is passing on to his readers.

How to Get Traffic From Digital Point

2007-10-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

The Digital Point forums are one of the most popular webmaster forums online. They have over 37,000 active members with 499,000 threads. Obviously this can be a great place to get exposure for your site just based on the sheer number of people.

You can only make a live link after you make 25 posts. It's worth the wait because threads are indexed by Google almost immediately and many have gained page rank over time. Don't forget to put your links in your signature immediately after you make 25 posts so you can start getting hits and back links.

Digital Point also has a "recent blog" listing your latest blog post under your name. I don't know about anyone else, but I always click these links. This is an easy way to get a few extra clicks to your blog.

If you want to promote one of your latest posts on Digital Point you can, but don't try it until you have established some reputation on the forums. The posts that will get you the most hits will be about link building, web design & development, and making money online. Obviously this is because almost everyone on Digital Point is on there to do at least one of those three things. If you have a blog in this niche don't pass up the chance to promote your site in the appropriate threads.

If you start an appropriate thread with a link to your site you can probably get over a hundred visitors every day that the thread stays in the first few posts. Although this isn't massive traffic there are a few pluses to the type of traffic you're getting. Most of the Digital Point users are web savvy, will subscribe to your feeds if they like your blog, and use social bookmarking sites like Stumble Upon and Digg. Most of them also have blogs of their own and might even give you a link back if you have a great article.

Another great thing about getting traffic from Digital Point is almost all of the users have the Alexa toolbar installed. I know Alexa isn't the most accurate measure of traffic but it can bring more advertisers to your site and make you look more credible in the eyes of other webmasters.

The first time I got massive hits from Digital Point was when I wrote a thread promoting my article "Blogs With Top Commentators Plug-in." That day I finally broke the 100,000 rank on Alexa - I was ranked 44,000 for that day and 65,000 the next.

The traffic from that thread died about four days later but ever since writing it my overall traffic has increased from about 70-100 visitors daily to 400+ daily. This was two weeks ago and I haven't had less than 300 visitors since.

If this isn't enough, you can go to the "freebies" section and exchange Stumbles & Diggs with other users. If you wanted to you could get 100's of stumbles in one night from Digital Point alone. If you do think about doing this try to get only your best article dugg & stumbled. Otherwise your article will probably just get buried and thumbed-down and you won't see much traffic.

Digg & Stumble for Money

2007-10-14T16:50:00.000-07:00

There are a few ways that you can make money by digging and stumbling articles. I see this go on a lot over at Digital Point forums. First you can sell your services in the Buy, Sell, or Trade category over at Digital Point. There are a few threads that you might have seen if you've been there such as "100 Social Bookmarks for $5." Most of these threads get hundreds of responses which means that at least a few people are making hundreds of dollars digging & stumbling articles.

Since your services might get lost in the shuffle the easiest way to stand out is to get creative. Instead of offering "50 diggs for $3" how about "Get on the front page of Digg for $20!" Obviously you can't make that claim unless you can deliver - but if you can deliver, you can make a lot of money. Some people have gotten 40,000 hits from the front page of digg. You can't buy that kind of traffic. Or can you?

Another way you can make money is selling Diggboss points. Diggboss gives you 1 point for every digg and stumble you make, and it costs two points to get a digg or stumble in return. You can also sell these on Digitalpoint, or through the Diggboss chat and forums. I know those of you who stumbled across this post are probably shaking your head at me, but just because I write about a site doesn't mean I endorse it. Also keep in mind that you don't have to digg or stumble any articles you don't want to - they actually encourage you to only digg the ones you like.

Last but not least you can use different revenue-sharing social bookmarking sites to do your personal bookmarking. There are sites that offer a share of adsense profits on your bookmark pages. I reviewed the two most popular ones on my post "Social Bookmarking Sites with Revenue Share."

Making money online is perfect for paying off those student credit cards you've had for years. By making a little extra cash, you can pay off debts so you can start saving money (and so you don't have to look into credit cards for bad credit). Once you stabilize your credit, you can answer the credit card offers you want to, not just the one you think you'll get!

I'm Still Alive

2007-10-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

If you've been here before you probably noticed that I haven't posted in awhile. I started school last month and I've been pretty busy trying to stay ahead in the last few weeks. I decided to drop my biology class (i'm horrible at science) and take environmental science instead, so that should free up my schedule and allow me to post more. I've also been busy trying to make money online to pay for the new class. I've been slightly successful though nowhere near my goal - yet. Here is what I've made in the last week:

Writing articles: $28
Selling posts on another blog: $18
Moola: $1.75
Adsense: $3.38
Vume: $.70
Web-adepts: $.60

Total: $52.23

Honestly it's not bad for the internet, although my adsense CTR (click-through-rate) is dismally low. I need to figure out how to tweak the HTML so I can get more clicks on this blog.

Now that I have taken this break I'm going to be posting a lot more often. I don't plan on having 5 posts for the month of October, even if it means learning how to balance school work with the rest of my life (something which I'm still learning how to do.) So stick around, there's still more to see.

How to Write a Successful Ebook

2007-10-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

Find your topic

So you want to write an ebook, but you don't know what to write about. Before you do anything else you should think about your hobbies and interests. Writing about something you enjoy will make writing, researching, and promoting your topic much easier.

If you still haven't though thought of anything, you can go to Amazon and check out their best seller list. Although they are "real" books they still reflect what people are interested in reading. You can also go to forums and google groups to see what most people are talking about.

The easiest way to write a successful ebook is to find a gap in the market and write about it. If there is a topic that most people are talking about but there aren't many blogs or ebooks dedicated to the subject, your ebook will have a good chance of success if it answers peoples questions.

Make your ebook easy to read and understand

Once you know what you are going to write about you have to present the information in a way that is easy to read and understand. People have a lower attention span on the internet than they have when reading a book in print. It's also a strain on the eyes to read a book on the computer. You should keep both of these in mind when writing your ebook. Here are a few ways to make your ebook easy to read:

Break your book up into different chapters, then break the chapters down into smaller sub-topics. This will make it easy for the reader to find the information they are looking for. It will also make it easier for the reader to pick up where they left off. Any information that doesn't directly relate to the chapter should be put into its own chapter or left out of the book.
Use short sentences and small paragraphs. Each paragraph should have a specific point to make that is clearly stated in the beginning.
Highlight your most important points by making them bold.
Read your e-book over when you are finished writing it and take out any unnecessary information. Every sentence should have new information to offer.

Make an eye-catching title

A good title goes a long way. The title is a buyer's first impression about how useful and entertaining the ebook will be. The title should detail what the book is going to be about while grabbing the reader's attention. Which one would you rather buy?

"Learn how to make money online."
Or
"Lazy kid makes $100 an hour without wife or girlfriend!" [Link]

Both of these are essentially the same title, but the first one is completely non-descript and boring. You know it'll show you how to make money online, but it doesn't tell you how much you can make or what you have to do. Most people won't pay money for an ebook without first knowing what they are buying.

The second one gives you an idea of how much you can make, and the word "lazy kid" gives you a hint that the work will be easy. Who doesn't want to make $100 an hour doing nothing? Of course you shouldn't make a claim like that unless your book delivers. The example comes from a popular ebook sold on ebay, the book sells for $9.95 and has sold hundreds of copies.

Writing a good ebook is a great way to earn some extra cash. You can hook up your savings accounts to your site so that all incoming money goes straight to the bank! You can also use the money to pay off your bad credit credit cards or even fill out one of those credit card offers you've been contemplating.