How to make money blogging with PayPerPost
PayPerPost is an upfront, fairly easy way to make money with your blog. You won’t get rich through PayPerPost or with any other similar service, but if you’re a fast, accurate writer, it’s a good way to make an extra $20 or so once in a while.
Through PayPerPost, advertisers ask bloggers to write short (100-200 word) posts about their product, service or website. Usually, the advertisers are websites hoping to get good reviews or even just inbound links to help raise their ranking in Google.
Here’s how it works:
I’ll get an email from PayPerPost telling me there’s an opportunity for me. I’ll sign in and check it out. You can reject any opportunity you aren’t interested in.
If the advertiser doesn’t expect too much for too little (such as a 300 word post for only $10) and they don’t seem to be running a scam, I’ll click on “Take This Opp.”
Let’s say the advertiser is a Miami Beach real estate company that wants me to post about its new website and its cool features. I’ll write up a post about the Miami Beach site on my own blog, carefully following the instructions given by the advertiser. I make sure the post is the length the advertiser has requested, and that I’ve included the requisite number of links to their site. It’s important to write a factual, truthful post about the services being offered, based on the information you’ve been provided: “This is the most respected real estate agency in Miami Beach. You can search their site for condos and houses, rentals and purchases. You get access to the Miami Beach MLS listings,” etc.)
Google first page: free tips for higher ranking blogs (part two)
In Part One, I explained how to use free blog and website creation sites like HubPages, Squidoo and others to build backlinks to your main blog.
(You want to do this because you want your blog to show up on the first page of Google when somebody searches for the subject of your blog. And Google favors blogs that are linked to by other high page rank sites; the likes of Google-favorites such as Squidoo confer lots of “authority” back to your own blog.)
Now, in Part Two, we’ll look at a few other things you can do to help get your blog a higher placement in those all important search engine page results (SERPs).
* Twitter tells the world (and Google) that you’ve got a new web site
To show up in Google, your new sites need to be “spidered” by Google’s “bots.” One way to let Google know that these sites have been created is to use Twitter. Google and Twitter are closely linked and that relationship shows no signs of waning.
So send out a tweet like this one:
“Check out my new site about discount electronic widget adaptors at http://www.squidoo.com/discount-electronic-widget-adapters”
Obviously, use an url shortener like TinyUrl or Is.gd to stay under Twitter’s 140 character limit.
Do this for every single new page you just created: the one at HubPages, the one at Xanga, and so on.
You don’t want to spam or annoy your Twitter followers, so use a FREE Twitter message timer like Twuffer.com so that all these tweets to go out at different times. (I use the “Schedule” function in MarketMeSuite. I also use MarketMeSuite to get backlinks to my blog…)
Google first page: free tips for higher ranking blogs (part one)
Unless your web site shows up on Google’s first page, the chances of your site being found by customers and clients is close to zero. Nine out of ten people searching for something on Google don’t look page the first page of search engine results that come up (SERPs).
Here are techniques I’ve used to get my sites and my clients’ on Google’s first page.
NOTE: This article is designed for people who already have a main company website, but it isn’t getting lots of traffic. You already have a “tree” — now we have to create some “branches”. In other words: You need other web sites to link back to yours
Remember: your customers and clients are searching for your product or service using certain keywords.
Let’s say people looking for what you sell are searching Google using the phrase:
“discount electronic widget adaptors”
Now, because Google looks at how many other sites link to yours, you must create “backlinks” to your web site.
You can start creating backlinks easily, using free web site and blog creation tools.
Sign up for free accounts at:
- HubPages
- Squidoo
- DevHub
- WetPaint
- Tumblr
- Xanga
- MyBlogLog
- Xomba
- LiveJournal
* SET UP A FREE SITE, page or blog at ALL of these sites, using their simple templates.
When the set up wizard asks your for the title of your new site, type in: Discount Electronic Widget Adaptors
* MAKE SURE you create sites and pages that someone would learn something from. In this case, share some of your expert advice about buying discount electronic widget adaptors — after all, you sell them, right?
(Here’s an example of a HubPage dedicated to one very specific topic and set of keywords. Here’s a similar article page at Xomba.)
Get a WordPress blog plus FREE hosting for just $3.99: highly recommended
Because I use the MarketMeSuite application to manage my Twitter, Facebook and other social media accounts, earlier this year I got early access to their newest service:
For only $3.99, BlogMe gives you an “almost free” WordPress blog, with your choice of premium WP themes (from Woo Theme or Studio Press) AND free site hosting (with unlimited bandwidth) for a one-time only charge of only $4.
Here’s what they offer:
“BlogMe is an application we created to streamline the creation of wordpress blogs, hosting and installation of premium themes – by doing everything automatically. You can install your own website in minutes, and all you need is a domain.”
I know: that sounds pretty hard to believe, but I trust the folks at MarketMeSuite and decided to check out BlogMe.
So with my new $3.99 BlogMe account, I created a new WordPress blog, using one of the many really nice premium WordPress themes, and got free hosting for one year.
It was the perfect way to create and experiment with a new design I had in mind for my new resume/portfolio site. This gave me the chance to finally use one of the “my.name” related domains I’ve been sitting on for years now.
Here’s the result: the newly redesigned KathyShaidle.com
I’m pretty pleased with this blog and I’ve received lots of great feedback — not to mention a couple of new clients!
Anyway, BlogMe is highly recommeded. If you’re looking for a really affordable WordPress blog set up, check it out. Using BlogMe is especially great if, like me, you always wanted to check out the WordPress blogging.
After setting up my first WordPress blog, I’ve now used WordPress for all my subsequent blogs (including this one.)
AdSense placements tips for blogs: how ONE CHANGE can increase your blog’s AdSense revenue
I only got my FIRST Google AdSense check after I’d been blogging for nine whole years.
How embarrassing. Why did it take so long?
Because I wasn’t following Google’s own tips for AdSense placement.
After I made ONE change to the Google AdSense placement on my blog, my revenues shot up tenfold.
I was sick of visiting my Google AdSense account and seeing my daily revenue stuck at pathetic levels, like 10 cents or 20 cents a day.
All I had to do, as it turns out, was visit Google’s own AdSense blog, where they share tips and best practices.
Sure enough, the blog talked about a certain website that had been sticking a 468×60 Banner AdSense unit at the bottom of their pages, and wasn’t making much money.
But then the website started experimenting with 300 x 250 Medium Rectangles instead.
When they started putting the 300 x 250 Medium Rectangles right in their actual posts, their revenue went from $10 a day to $1700!
So I decided to change what I was doing with AdSense placement on my blog. Before, I just stuck a 728 x 90 AdSense Leaderboard unit on my blog’s sidebar and hoped for the best.
BUT as you can see from the illustration at the top of this article, Google recommends AdSense placement right below/at the bottom of your blog posts, too.
So the next time I blogged, I wrote my blog post as usual, but then pasted the AdSense code for a 300 x 250 Medium Rectangle image ad at the bottom of my own words, leaving a little space between the content of the post and the ad.
How to make money blogging with contextual advertising (video)
Sometimes you’ll visit a blog and notice hyperlinks throughout the copy that look a bit different. They may be double underlined, or a color other than the usual blue.
Then when you’ve clicked on one of those links, you’ve been taken to an ad for a product or service. Maybe a pop up comes up first and shows you a preview to the advertiser’s site.
When you clicked on that link, the owner of the blog you found it on gets paid!
These special hyperlinks are called in text advertising or contextual advertising.
I’ve experimented with different in text and contextual advertising services in the past, but I’ve settled on InfoLinks and use it on all my blogs.
InfoLinks is free and easy to join. Once you sign up, you get a piece of HTML code you insert in your blog’s source code.
Or you can use the very handy InfoLinks plug in for WordPress if you run a WordPress blog (like this one.)
(InfoLinks also has plugins for Blogger, Joomia and Drupal blogging platforms.)
Here’s how InfoLinks describes what your visitors will see:
“Pay Per Click In Text advertising inserts text link advertisements within the content of your website, usually in the form of double-underline hyperlinks. Upon a hover of the mouse, a floating informational bubble opens with content from an advertiser. If clicked, the visitor is directed to the advertiser’s landing page and you earn advertising revenue; otherwise, when the mouse is moved away from the hyperlink, the bubble disappears.”
InfoLinks offers many advantages if you’re thinking of monetizing your blog with contextual advertising.
They “guarantee the industry’s highest revenue share.” That means you’ll keep a bigger chunk of what you’ll earn after installing InfoLinks than you will if you go with another similar company.
How to get visitors to stay on your blog — and share it with friends
One of my favorite blogging, social networking and website enhancement tools is also FREE!
Here’s what they offer you, at no cost:
“One line of code can triple the time readers spend on your site. Interested?
“Apture’s Contextual Search keeps users engaged with your content by giving them the tools to search and share without even leaving your page. Give your readers the power to search the web for rich content from Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, Flickr, YouTube and others all through your site.”
Here’s what happens: you install a bit of custom generated code you get from Apture, after you give them your basic blog information.
After that, when someone visits your site and scrolls down, a slender toolbar appears and invites them to share what they see on your blog using email, Twitter and/or Facebook.
In other words, the Apture toolbar immediately connects your blog to the most important social networking tools on the web today. This means visitors can easily share your blog more easily to their friends and followers.
And that means more traffic and links for your blog.
Visitors can also use the built in search field to find information in your blog’s archives. This easy to use search feature keeps visitors engaged on your blog longer.
Here’s a recent report I received from Apture, telling me the different installing the toolbar has made to one of my blogs:
Apture Report for 2010-11-22 to 2010-11-28
- Readers spent 1.2x more time on your site when they used Apture
- Readers searched 118 times on your site using Apture
- Your readers want to know more about: kathy shaidle, ., tura satana.
- Readers shared 8 articles via Apture
Affiliate marketing strategy: earn from Google AdSense
Are you a webmaster who needs funds to keep your website running? Or is your website the only way for you to earn income?
Whichever you are, for as long as you are a webmaster or a web publisher and you need cash, affiliate marketing may work well for you.
With affiliate marketing, you may get cash pouring into your bank account easily. And if your website is rich in great content and you want to earn more profit, why not get into the Google Adsense program as well?
Google Adsense is actually an affiliate marketing program in a sense. In Google Adsense, Google act as the intermediary between the affiliates and the merchants. The merchant, or the advertiser, simply signs up with Google and provides the latter with text ads pertaining to their products. These ads, which is actually a link to the advertiser’s website, would then appear on Google searches as well as on the websites owned by the affiliates, or by those webmasters who have signed up with the Google Adsense program.
While one can find a lot of similarities between Google Adsense and other affiliate marketing programs, you can also see a lot of differences. In Google Adsense, all the webmaster has to do is place a code on his website and Google takes care of the rest. The ads that Google places on your site will generally be relevant to the content of your site, based on the keywords on the page or post. This would be advantageous both for you and for the advertiser, as the visitors of your site would more or less be actually interested with the products being advertised.
