Project Wonderful

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Got approved by project wonderful the other day and I am running their widget.

I have set the amount required to advertise on this blog to $0.01. I think 1 cent is a pretty good price to advertise on this blog. However, I will give priority to advertising to those who have advertised on this blog through Entrecard.

In other words, when you advertise through Entrecard you will get one more day of advertising for just $0.01. It is just a way to say thank you to those who advertise through Entrecard.

Rss Hugger- Search Engine Optimization

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RssHugger is a relatively new website developed to help bloggers promote their blogs, and to help visitors discover new blogs.

Why do you must be part of RssHugger?

Because it is a great way to promote your blog

To increase traffic to your blog

To build, much needed, deep backlinks for search engine optimization,

And increase rss subscribers.

To be part of Rsshugger you must pay a one time fee of $20.

For those interested in promoting their blog and who can act now, the service is free. Just write about RssHugger and you can let Hugger to what he does best.

I like RssHugger. One more way to promote my blog.

Check it out for yourself, visit my Rsshuger page

Entrecard Tips

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Is Entrecard the small blog heaven?

Entrecard is my major source of traffic. I would prefer search engine traffic, but traffic is traffic. There are a few things that could go wrong with Entrecard. There is a debate going on, about how being a member of Entrecard could actually take a toll on your search engine ranking, but I didn’t have any ranking in the first place so I am not able to see the effects of something like this; maybe down the line.

The amount required to advertise on my blog has gone up a lot recently. The amount of credits required to advertise on ones blog fluctuates daily, and is related to the amount of drops one receives. To receive a card, for someone to drop a card on you, they must visit your blog. So as the number of visitors Entrecard sends to you increases, so does the cost to advertise on your blog. In total, I have received about 1400 visits to my blog in the past three weeks from Entrecard. I dropped 1361 cards and had about 1069 cards dropped on me.

When you drop a card or someone drops a card on you, you receive a credit. You can use these credits to advertise your card on other blogs. The more credits you have the more advertisements you can place on other people’s widgets. Entrecard also has a marketplace. You can use your credits like a currency to purchase custom design logos, long term advertising, reviews, custom articles etc. You can also make your services available for pay.

To get the most out of Entrecard you must be active; u must drop cards and advertise regularly.

What I do is:

-Advertise on blogs that have a higher Alexa ranking than mine, more readers than mine and many RSS subscribers.

If an ad works, I buy it again even if I have to pay more the second or third time.

-Advertise on new Blogs. When a blog enters the system it only costs 2 credits to place ads on them; so I try and buy as many cheaper ads as I can. Cheap does not necessarily mean low value.

I divide my credits and advertise on new and older blogs. If I can afford it and there is space for advertising on their blog, I try and return the favour and buy an ad from the blogs that advertise on mine.

What I will start doing is writing recommendations for other Blogs, and perhaps get some for mine.

You can also read the firts post I wrotte about entrecard a couple of months ago:

Increase Traffic with Entrecard

Subscribe to my feed for up-to-date information on what I do to keep this blog going.

Your own domain

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Blogging is one of the leading online marketing methods right now. Blogs are an excellent way for advertisers to target consumers with particular interests and needs. Any well written and maintained blog can generate income. If you play your cards right you can increase traffic and make money blogging. As the number of people who read your posts increases so does the money you make. Nevertheless, it is very important not to close any doors on your quest to make money blogging. By not closing doors I mean that you have to keep all your options open, qualify for the most affiliate programs, register for the right ones, write informative posts and continuously work towards increasing traffic.

Hosting your blog on your own domain can be beneficial and fruitful.

It is beneficial due to the fact that it can, and will generate the good kind of traffic, loyal readers. A relatively short and catchy domain name can be remembered and marketed easier than blahblahblah.blogspot.wordpres.whoknowswhat.com. Aside from that, it can be classified and ranked better by search engines. That is, if you include keywords in your domain name; keywords about what people will find on your blog. Increasing traffic by achieving better rankings can down the line prove to be highly profitable.

I will be honest. I haven’t seen these profits. What I have seen is that ever since I got my own domain, the number of search engine traffic to this blog increased a bit. Not a lot but it increased. Based on the content, the back links the rankings, the visits and everything else associated with my “bloggings” I know that its value has and will continue to increase day by day. It is nice to know that what I am doing has some value to it. I got my domain for under $10. I hear paying for hosting is not a bad idea either. I haven’t done that yet. At the time I do it for free through blogger but I am highly considering it.

You can get a domain for less than $6 from Netfirms and continue to host your blog from where you do it now. It is easy, and almost free.

I managed to generate enough money to buy my domain in less than a few weeks blogging.

Netfirms also offers web hosting for unlimited websites and for under $5 a month.

Owning a domain can also be fruitful; because you increase your chances of being part of affiliate programs that you wouldn’t be able to join otherwise. An example of such a program is TTZ media. The TTZ media widget features different electronics, form categories you choose, and you can make money by clicks and by sales.

It is not easy to Make Money Blogging, it takes work, time and being able to make the right choices. To stay updated with what I do to make money blogging, subscribe to my feed.

How much is your site worth?

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This and other similar widgets have been going around for a while now. I had entered my URL in the past and got $0, then something like $24 and hadn’t checked in a while. So I entered my URL today just to see how many millions my blog is worth. Fortunately, I didn’t have to call my accountant and figure out how to deal with the new asset because with 600 dollars I am still staying in the same tax bracket. Phew… So as you can see, my blogs worth is calculated at 600 smackers!


My site is worth $600.
How much is yours worth?



I don’t know how accurate this thing is but it supposedly calculates your sites worth based on your Alexa Traffic Ranking, Google Page Rank, and backlinks. I don’t have a Google Page Rank yet, but I got an Alexa Traffic Ranking and a few backlinks. If you haven’t checked yet or recently and have some time to kill go ahead. You never know, you might be worth millions. ;)

Unlimited free Quality Backlinks from Qassia

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Qassia is a relatively new but substantially different knowledge base. Qassia rewards you with backlinks and rankings by submitting bits of information and reviewing other peoples work . As a member you can submit your blog/website as well as different articles with your links. Once you submit the material, it will be viewed and reviewed by other users. At Qassia articles are referred to as “Intel”. Intel is added to Qassia in the form of posts, which are somewhat similar to blog posts. Intel has to be screened by users before being published. You get credit when rating, when posting, and by referring other users. The more Qassia dollars you have in your account, the better your websites will rank in their directory and the number of visitors to your blog will increase. The more Qassia dollars you are worth, the better your websites will rank.

You can add any kind of information you want and does not have to be relevant to your blog or website.

Your websites will be displayed when users browse through their tag-based directory. By calibrating your account properly you can also have Adsense ads on your intel and possibly increase your revenue by a few bucks a month. You get to keep 100% of your advertising revenue!


You can signup to Qassia by visiting my page. It is by invite only.

Bloggin-Ads Contest

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It’s a contest that I am participating in. There will be 12 winners, 1 for every prize group. I am a sponsor for Group 9 and I am giving away 50 entrecards and a 125x125 ad for a month. There are many prizes, some of them very generous. Just scroll down and you will see. By posting the contest details I am entering the contest myself. All the prizes and links to the sponsors are bellow. For more details you can follow the link above to Bloggin-Ads.

Contest Duration - 1/11/08 ’til 1/31/08 (11:59:00PM PST)

Prizes

There are going to be 12 different groups of prizes, which means there are going to be a total of 12 different winners. By adding up the value of all the prizes, I would say it is worth a least $1,000. Just for Max’s sponsorship of “500″ One Buck Wiki pages total a value of $500, which makes it one heck of a contest.

*Group 1*

*Group 2*

*Group 3*

*Group 4*

*Group 5*

*Group 6*

*Group 7*

*Group 8*

*Group 9*

*Group 10*

*Group 11*

*Group 12*

  • 500EC, 2 month 125×125 ad spot (ABC)
  • 1 month 125×125 ad spot (Contest Time)
  • 1 Month 125×125 ad spot (Read To Me Dad)
  • 1 month 125×125 ad spot (Rhyan)
  • Blog directory submission (5 keyword phrases) (SEO News)

Increasing Traffic by Article Submission

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I just searched using Google. I wrote the title of one of my articles and it was listed on number one, number two and number 3.

In order to achieve this you must post articles in different databases with your back link. It is not that hard and if you fit it in your daily routine you are guaranteed long term results. As the number of links to your blog increases, down the line visits will increase.

Hub Pages

There are many benefits to joining Hubpages.
Hubpages is a search engine favorite so any sites you create, any articles you post (called Hubs) are quickly crawled by search engines. There is no limit on how many Hubs you can create. You can even link back to your blog for increased traffic ;).
Aside from the hub rankings and the social networking features on Hubpages there is also some money to be made. You receive a % of all ads shown on your Hubpages. They use 3 Affiliate programs. Adsense, Ebay and Amazon. If your not an affiliate of any of these programs you can sign up right through Hubpages. If you create several hubs, post several articles, traffic and revenue can start to add up.

I posted an article on Search Engine Submission on Hubpages.

Submit Articles on Databases

Another thing you can do is to submit your articles on databases. Enhancing a post of yours, adding more words, optimizing the keywords, adding a link to your blog and then submitting it to databases regularly can and will increase visits to your blog. The more links that are out there pointing to your blog the better your search engine rankings will be. Also, submitting articles makes them available to other bloggers to post on their blogs increasing your back links.

Here are some databases I submitted articles to:

goarticles.com
ezinearticles.com
articlecity.com
amazines.com
webarticles.com
article-directory.net
articledashboard.com

In most of the above you will need to create an account. So have all your info handy and the information regarding your article (keywords, title, categories). Once you submit you will have to wait until it gets approved.

To read up on what other things I have done to increase traffic to this blog click here.

Let me keep you posted! Feel free to subscribe to my feed.

Affiliate Programs

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Having looked into both services, TTZ Media and Widget Bucks; I decided to start testing TTZ Media. I am going to continue running their widget. There actually are some good prices on electronics and it loads pretty fast. I want readers to be able to get to the content of this blog fast, and perhaps find deals on electronics; TTZ media prices are pretty good. I am also looking into Linkworth and Commission Junction.

Social Networking for Money

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From time to time I will write about social networking opportunities that can easily help increase traffic to your blog. Joining communities like these is easy and can bring visitors. There are different benefits from site to site, but every social networking site I have joined has increased traffic in one way or another. Recently I joined Narple.

Narple is almost like every other Social Networking site. It is not particularly catered to bloggers, it is more like Facebook. It has a blogging feature where you can write about things, you can create polls, you can even advertise on your page or the ones of others. You can promote your blog by blogging in the Narple platform, by posting your URL on your Narple home page or the forums.

The only reason why I am mentioning Narple is because they pay you to do all this. They pay with credits that translate into money. Just thought worth mentioning….



Make Money Blogging, TTZ Media-WidgetBucks

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I am not sure if I can use both, and even in the case that I could use both I would only rather use one of the two. I don’t want to flood this blog with ads.

I am considering either TTZ Media or Widgetbucks

If you qualify they provide you with a widget that displays advertisements for electronic or computer related products. When someone actually purchases an item you make a commission. You can also earn by referring people to the programs. It would be nice if they had different categories of products available, but that’s fine. Widgetbucks has some variation, however nothing that could relate specifically to this blog. The features of two programs I am considering are:

TTZ Media

Pay-Per-Click

Commission on sales

10 percent referral fee based on the commissions

25 dollar pay out

You must have your own domain to qualify.

Picks featured products based on keywords

For more info visit: ttzmedia.com

Or

WidgetBucks

Pay-Per-Click

Commission on sales

10 percent referral fee based on the commissions

You receive a $25 bonus upon approval

50 dollar pay out

You pick the category of products you would like featured

For more information visit widgetbucks.com

For a thorough widgetbucks review visit: Problogger

The TTZ media code has been placed just to see how it looks and perhaps to get ideas of integrating it on my blog.

One of the things I find problematic about both of these services they feature advertisements about products that are not necessarily related to the topic of this blog.

Nevertheless, the reason that I am considering them is that everyone, at one point or another might find interesting products online. Some of the prices are pretty good.

Submit your Blog to Search Engines

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Submitting your blog to different search engines can, in the long run, get your site featured in searches for particular keywords in your text. Optimizing your blog for better results is a science in itself and is not a topic that I know a lot about. So at this point, I will just post about which search engines I have submitted this blog at.

Although manual submission can be a grueling task, not having to pay anything in the end, makes doing it a bit more pleasant.

Before proceeding on submitting I would suggest you write down all the information relating to your blog, i.e. URL, Title, Description, Keywords and just copy paste accordingly. Some ask for them and some don’t. Some require you create an account, and some need your e-mail.

Aside from the big boys Yahoo and Google I have submitted this blog to a few other smaller search engines:

icerocket.com
Aaspaas.com
Abacho.at
Abacho.ch
Abacho.co.uk
Abacho.com
Abacho.de
Abacho.es
Abacho.fr
Abacho.it
Accoona.com
Accoona.eu
Amfibi.com
Amidalla.com
Anoox.com
ATSearch.at
Eudip.com
Exalead.com
FreshLinks.net
HotLaunch.com
MixCat.com
JDGO.com
Megaglobe.com
InfoTiger.com
IntelSeek.com
Jayde.com

There are tools out there that will submit your URL for free. You can use those services to submit your blog at no cost.

For submitting in blog-specific directories you might want to read up on my previous post:

Let the world you have a blog

Feel free to subscribe to this blog by RSS or E-mail.

About Blogging

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Making money blogging is not easy and does not happen overnight. It takes time and work. It does not happen by pressing a button. It is just like everything else in life. It takes time and effort.

I don’t know if you like cooking or not, but personally, I see blogging like food.

You can go buy diner in a box or a can and you can eat; that’s if you are willing to compromise. If you rather have something nice you can go to a restaurant and pay a professional to cook for you; but you will have to pay for it. There are methods, programs and software you can find to help make a blog successful, but you will have to pay for that too.

Or you can experiment by trying different things, optimize, tweak, repeat, practice, learn and eventually you will get it.

The post coming up will be about search engines. What I have done to get this blog in as many search engines possible. Subscribe to Ideas and Money. By E-mail or RSS so I can keep you posted. ;)

Growing Weary of Links2Blog

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Links2Blogs is a text link-exchange program that I Joined, and wrote about here. I installed the Links2Blogs bar about a week ago. Their statistics show that although it got clicked 30 times on my blog it only generated two visits to Ideas and Money. Only one person joined, got one referral, which translated to absolutely no credits and no traffic whatsoever. I feel it’s taking valuable space and soon it will be replaced.

Categorize your Posts in Blogger

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One of the things that Blogger won’t allow you to do is categorize your posts. There is a way around that. I came across an excellent, detailed, step by step article on how to use del.icio.us and categorize your posts. Blogger Tips and Tricks is a great source of information.

Monetizing your Blog-Pay Per Post

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I have applied for PayPerPost recently and added their link on my blog today. I haven’t started writing for them yet, but I am eager to do so. They pay you to post, to write about products, and basically provide your valuable opinion to advertisers. You can join by clicking on the button on the top right corner. Its free, you can start posting as soon as you get approved.


Trying to monetize this blog has been a double edged sword. The assumption I wanted to prove initially was whether my opinion is worth any money. Until now I have managed to bring in a couple of dollars; enough to purchase a domain on sale and for under 5 bucks. I have been looking into products out there, ways to monetize and I feel like at some point in time I might come across the dilemma of having to make a compromise, i.e. writing about products that I want readers to buy, to endorse, to sign up for and so on for the purpose of making money myself.

At this point however, I am going to continue just writing about what I have done, the steps taken to make this blog successful, to increase traffic and to increase revenue. Following up on my recommendations is and will be your choice.

Writing about monetizing or optimizing a blog, is not a new idea. Ideas and money is just to present my course of action. At some point in time, and if what I have done is actually working the method, the steps, will be applied on another blog. I see this blog as an open interactive business plan. That’s all.

Make money blogging- AdSense and Kontera

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Make money blogging- AdSense and Kontera

My two cents

AdSense

I installed Adsense from the very beginning. Adsense places keyword sensitive ads on your pages. Income levels from AdSense ads, in general, are depended on how many people follow the links. When visiting other blogs, I sometimes follow Adsense links, and actually find interesting products and information. So, I figured placing them on my blog could help readers find useful information and products. Consequently, bring in a few pennies. Success depends highly on traffic, ad placement, frequency, keywords and most important on clicks.

Clicks are important for pretty much every advertisement on your blog.

Kontera

Kontera provides low profile ads for your blog. Anyone with a site or a blog can be a publisher, as long as you meet the traffic and content requirements. Kontera finds keywords in your text and turns words into links. Although I enjoy hosting the unobtrusive ads on my blog, sometimes they don’t even show up, probably due to browser issues.

Both AdSense and Kontera pay you when your balance reaches $100.

Aside from Kontera and Adsense I have been looking into a couple more ways to monetize my blog. I am aiming to do so in the most discreet way possible. Stay tuned, subscribe by either RSS Feed or e-mail.



Blog Catalog

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Blog Catalog

Ideas and Money is now on Blog Catalog

Blog Catalog is a blog directory, that aside form this blog, features tons of other blogs on myriads of topics. It is an excellent networking tool. You browse other blogs with ease, become part of interesting communities and can consequently let more people know that your blog exists. Although, there are other Social Networking sites and tools on the internet Blog Catalog is quite easy to use and can be effective in increasing your readership.

I have found that the best way to let the world know that your blog exists, and consequently increase traffic to your blog, is being active in blogging communities such the ones part of Blog Catalog.

New Domain Name

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Today is a great day for Ideas and Money. I got a domain for my blog!

www.ideasandmoney.info

I bought it for a few dollars; it was on sale for less than 10. I used dollars I have made through advertising on this blog. Well, I haven’t received any payments yet but I budgeted some of the money.
The only reason I started this blog was to validate an assumption:
That what I wanted to write should be worth something… it had to.
About two weeks later, I got a domain from it. I didn’t make millions, or thousands or even hundreds…but by taking the steps I have taken, as outlined in the pages of this blog, I actually got somewhere.
I am going to continue hosting it through Blogger. Looked into Wordpress, and although liked it a lot, I don’t think it is wise to do a switch right now. Maybe later.
Looked into free hosting services, but I would be expending time and energy I could be using to do other things.
I am excited about 2008; there are so many things to do still, many things to write about and many products and services to test, and hopefully more domains to buy ;-).

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