Mike's Money Making Mission

The Secret Of Lots Of Blog Hits

2012-01-01T07:00:00.000Z

My blog 67 Not Out has now had virtually 2.4 million visitors, so it has gone quite well.

I was asked, "How did you do this?"

It's no real secret - you just keep on going, day after day with new posts. Actually, thinking about it, that is the big secret! Too many people set up blogs and soon get disappointed when floods of visitors fail to arrive to read their words of wisdom.

On 67 Not Out I've now published just over 730 posts. Now here's the strange bit. Most of these posts keep on getting hits week after week throughout the year. So the number of visits increases as time ticks by.

It's often the back posts that makes the number of visitors look much healthier.

It's obvious why. If you have just, say, 20 posts then you only have this number of entries in the search engines to attract visitors. But if you have 700 posts - well, you get the message. Your back catalogue of posts - as in the book business or the music industry - will make you money by bringing more visitors. Think how someone like Paul McCartney is still getting royalties on early Beatles hits from 40+ years ago. It's similar with blogging.

Of course with blogging posts there are still the sensible rules to follow to get good results from search engines, and also from social networking sites. One of the important secrets, however, is to keep on going, and have lots of posts floating about the Blogosphere.

The more fish you have in the water the more fish you are likely to catch.

Coincidence and Synchronicity: Coincidence stories and examples.

Over 80,000 Hits From Stumbleupon

2010-07-20T16:39:00.007+01:00

I know that I mentioned Stumbleupon in my last post and said that it's possible to get an extra 1000 visits from them via their website. However, for one of my posts on 67 Not Out I've now had over 81 thousand hits over the last seven days - see stats below.

This has given me massive traffic - at least for the blog concerned. As you will see from the stats below the blog had 37290 visitors yesterday and 51840 page views. For the previous day it was 26847 and 35882.

I'm not for one minute suggesting that this can be achieved all the time but it does indicate the power of Stumbleupon as a traffic generating tool.

I've heard people say negative things like, "Yea, but it isn't good traffic, it's not targeted." To this I'd simply say, "Rubbish!"

Sure some of the readers won't be ideal, some might well hate what they find, but there will be some who like the blog, will subscribe and will even link to you. That has to be nothing but good.

Because of Stumbleupon I've also had hits from Facebook and other blogs and websites which have happened all by themselves.

I can't honestly tell you why this particular post took off in the way it did. Could well be just luck but it's good to know that this can happen and if it doesn't you should still get a few hits.

I'm now looking at Twitter as a traffic generating tool. Not too convinced about this but at the moment I'm trying to build my followers. So far I've gone from nil to over 700 followers. I'm joining lists where people say that if you will follow them on Twitter they will also follow you back.

I can't say yet if this will be of benefit and will get back to you on this in due course.

Meanwhile if anyone follows me on Twitter I will follow them back. My Twitter link is @67notout - also why not leave a comment on this post and say you will also follow back those who follow you, won't do any harm.

That's it for now,

Good luck,
Mike.

Sources Bringing Blog Traffic

2010-07-05T16:22:00.004+01:00

Following on from my last post Stumbleupon is now getting much better results for 67 Not Out than with Reddit. The stats above show referrals from them for the last month - this works out at about 890 per week or 127 daily.

As I've written previously most blog directories don't bring in many referrals, if any, though their inbound links are useful towards search engine ratings. I have, however, been getting referrals okay from blogtopsites - nothing massive but a worthwhile number.

She Told Me is also sending referrals and is useful for getting a bit of publicity for individual blog posts. It appears that you can enter posts everytime you publish a new one.

As with any blog it's always useful to leave links wherever you can - even if they are only likely to bring in an extra couple of hits per day. They all add up. It's no good just relying on one or two sources for referrals, just in case something goes wrong and the hits drop off dramatically.

Good luck with your blogging,
Mike.

Russian Secret Device Stores Psychic Energy

How To Get An Extra 1000 Referrals A Week

2010-06-09T11:55:00.000+01:00

I've been dabbling in all sorts of ways to get traffic to my newest blog 67 Not Out. The results have been mixed but I have found out a way which is bringing me in a regular extra 1000 referrals a week.

No doubt you have heard of Stumbleupon and Reddit before - most within blogging probably have. I'd used them before but without a great deal of success, even though I read up on the supposed 'secrets' from other blogmasters.

Some say that with Stumbleupon, for instance, the way forward is to get lots of friends (subscriptions) and with Reddit you need high karma (their rating points system). I've got neither of these!

I have only 10 friends/subscriptions on Stumbleupon and only a karma of 200 on Reddit. But as you can see below, from my stats, I've had over 1000 referrals from them in the last 7 days.

Perhaps if I did have more friends/karma I would have done better - I don't know about this at the present time.

To get the extra 1000 referrals all I have done is to submit a post from my blog to both Stumbleupon and Reddit every single day. And consistency is now be paying off.

With Stumbleupon I also stumble two or three other blogs or website's posts every day as well. This way it doesn't look as if I'm only promoting my own stuff. A few other stumbles a day only takes a few minutes.

With Reddit I follow the same procedure and also submit other blogs and websites, besides my own, each day.

Now, from what I can see, there are some very strange folk on Reddit who like nothing better to mark your submissions down, no matter how good they are. I asked one member why he did this and he answered, "Because I can." They no doubt have ulterior motives. At first this used to annoy me immensely but now I accept that this happens and don't worry about my karma. Just like I don't get annoyed by some of the stupid / insulting comments some Reddit members leave.

With Reddit the main way to success is a good title for the posts you submit. It doesn't have to be the proper blog title, you can use something completely different. If it's catchy and sounds interesting you'll get traffic.

As I have already said, perhaps if I fully followed what some of the self styled 'experts' suggest I'd get an even better response from Stumbleupon and Reddit. For the time being though, I'm happy to get 1000 referrals a week from them.

Some might say that such referrals aren't quality traffic. I still maintain, however, that all traffic is good traffic - and it's definitely better than little traffic!

Good luck,
Mike.

67 Not Out: The blog about coincidences, synchronicity and other bizarre mysteries.

Blog Traffic From Reddit, Blogcatalog and Twitter

2010-03-11T16:33:00.004Z

Looking at stats for my newest blog 67 Not Out it's interesting to see where the blog's referrals originate.

Times have changed since I first started blogging and now it seems that the likes of Reddit, blogcatalog, Twitter and similar sites can't be ignored.

The argument against them is usually that the traffic isn't necessarily good traffic - but it's definitely better than not having it!

With Reddit, for example, if you do it properly, you should get between 40 and 150 referrals in a day for blog posts submitted (you need a good, catchy title - it doesn't have to be the same as the one on your blog for the same post). If you are lucky you could get more traffic than this but the figures I have suggested are what I've been getting on average without too much effort.

And that's the draw back with such sites - it can take effort and/or time. You need to network.

I haven't been overdoing it - time wise - with 67 Not Out. I just go to Reddit, blogcatalog and Twitter once a day. I've never used these previously to generate traffic but, as you can see by the chart on the right, they are now important referral sources for the blog.

Reddit is a strange site for two reasons. Firstly, sometimes my post submissions don't get listed properly and therefore draw a blank with referrals. It seems they have some sort of spam catcher that catches even genuine posts.

So when I submit a post to Reddit I immediately go to the 'What's New' section to ensure the post has been accepted properly. It should show up within minutes. If it's not listed, something has gone wrong, probably it's been caught up in the spam catcher's net. If it has I leave things for a while and then delete the entry and later I try again.

The other strange thing about Reddit is that posts can be voted up and down by other members. Well this isn't strange, but the fact that lots of people delight in downvoting perfectly good posts, is. But you have to accept this - they probably have some agenda in downvoting.

With blogcatalog it's necessary to get noticed and the best way seems to be by joining in with their forum. Mind you, all forums can generate traffic.

As for Twitter it's not my cup of tea really - too much spam and pointless tweets. But, as you can see, it creeps into my top 10 referrers for 67 Not Out.

I'm also now trying Stumbleupon but I haven't fully mastered this as yet. I did get 80+ referrals for one post but most of the others only had one or two. Time willing I'll work on this.

The Setting Up And Promoting A New Blog

2010-01-21T16:01:00.005Z

I have been spending quite a bit of my blogging time trying to set up a new blog 67 Not Out. As its about coincidences and synchronicity it's not one of the 'easy' niches to promote.

I've set up blogs previously on things like celebrities and money making and have got them moving pretty quickly using the right SEO and also picking popular subjects that people actually want to read. I usually set myself a target of 1500 visits for the first month of a new blog.

I must admit though that I'm not on target as yet for 67 Not Out. It's something I want to persist with though as coincidences, and there meaning, is something that interests me.

With this new blog I've found a few things that work traffic wise and some that don't.

One good source of traffic has been blogcatalog whereas a similar site FuelMyBlog has been a waste of time as far as I'm concerned.

Blogcatalog is bursting with activity whereas FuelMyBlog has a directory of many defunct blogs and very little action on their forum. Blogcatalog's forum is almost too good as, if you start a discussion, it can quickly get knocked off the front page unless you give it some attention yourself.

I would add though that to be successful on blogcatalog you have to be pro active. It's not good just listing your blog, going away and forgetting it. It's necessary to make friends, leave comments, join in the forum and so on. Unfortunately that means allowing time for such activities.

It's a good place to find other blogs to visit and leave comments. I usually say in the comments I leave that I 'arrived via blogcatalog'. This way most bloggers return the visit.

She Told Me has also produced a few visits for me and with the site you can also make a little money - if you are lucky! You simply list your blogs/posts and get any AdSense clicks from the page credited to your own AdSense account. It won't make a fortune but, as they say, every little helps.

As for blog directories most are a waste of space as regard referring visits. You might just get a handful if you are lucky. I've submitted 67 Not Out to most of the main directories but have had no referrals at all. What they are useful for is links to your blog, which helps with the search engine rankings. Most directories have PR's in excess of 4.

I've managed to get a few blogs linking to 67 Not Out so that also helps with visitors. What I'm waiting for is to crack Google and get some good positions for a few keywords / phrases. This will come in it's own good time.

As I said in the previous post it's persistence that will win the day.

Good luck,
Mike.

10 Coincidence or Synchronicity Examples: Message from the dead, dreaming winners, questions answered, unexpected meetings etc. etc.

Four Secrets Of Making Money With Blogs

2010-01-03T16:44:00.005Z

Okay, what are the secrets to making money with blogs? There's a lot of rubbish written on this but here the 4 essentials.

(1) Persistence
So many get enthused at the start of a New Year and decide to make their fortune by blogging. "It's easy," they think, having read a lot of the hype. The reality is, however, that most new bloggers soon give up when the cash doesn't appear as it is supposed to.

Yes, there will always be exceptions but generally it takes a lot of persistence to make good full time money from a blog. Think perhaps years rather than overnight.

Even big six figure bloggers such as Darren Rowse didn't crack the big time straight away.
He made a lot of money in November 2009 but after he had stated this fact he went on to say:

This might sound like another scammy ‘make money fast online’ story - but it’s not. While the money did come in fast in November, it was on the back of over 3 years hard work and gradual growth on that blog.

Not only that - I’d been blogging for 4 years previously on other blogs - learning the medium and experimenting with how blogs could make money.

Take another example. Rhys Wynne for example, for whom I have a lot of respect.

He recently wrote:

Maintaining a blog is hard work, promoting a blog is hard work. However it can be rewarding. Blogging hasn’t bought me – after 7 years – a full time sustainable income yet. However, in the past 7 years I have gained the following from blogging:-

• A full time job as a web marketer.
• A part time job traveling the country working with a British Wrestling company.
• Beer money.
• Weekends away being wined & dined in London.
• A girlfriend for six months.
• Mentioned in the Guardian, Twice
• Two Interviews on BBC Radio Wales.
• A column in The North Wales Weekly News.
• Video Games.
• Professional connections.
• People in strange cities to go with for pints.
• And – dare I say it – Friends.

So, unless you are a 'special one', it may well take a while to build up your blog to reach a good income level. You have to keep on going.

(2) Flexibility
I maintain that you have to be flexible in blogging and with any money making venture. If something isn't working it's no good flogging a dead horse. You have to make some changes. If you keep on doing the same things, you'll get the same results.

So be prepared to try different styles or make improvements if things aren't performing as you would wish - but keep in mind that blogging is long term.

(3) Promotion
You can write the most interesting and perfect copy but, if no one visits or reads your blog, you won't make any money. Full stop.

People won't just arrive at a blog post, you have to learn the business. Read about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and do something every day to promote your blog. You'll find lots of ways to do this if you start looking.

When I started blogging I set myself a target of getting my blog's URL listed somewhere different every day. At the time I didn't fully realise all of the benefits of doing this. It simply made sense to me that if I had the blog listed in lots of places, hopefully I might just get lots of visitors in return.

It didn't actually work out exactly like this but the blog traffic increased gradually week by week. The benefit I eventually saw was that all of the links often got my posts in good positions on Google. Now this does bring visitors.

(4) Traffic
The biggest secret of blogging is traffic. If you have lots of traffic you'll make money.

"Yes, but isn't Content King?," people ask. I think it's more of a Lord or a Duke personally. Good content will keep people re-visiting the blog and they may well become subscribers.

But I feel that all visitors are of equal value. Some visitors will make you some money but lots of visitors will make you lots of visitors. This is regardless of where they came from. Blogging is partly a numbers game.

Summary
For me therefore the Four Secrets Of Making Money With Blogs are: Persistence, Flexibility, Promotion and Traffic.

There are lots of other things that will help achieve success and that's why I previously mentioned how it is necessary to learn the business. The answers are out there.

Good luck,
Mike

67 Not Out: A new blog of coincidence, synchronicity and other stuff.

Make Money With Blogs By Finding A Hunger

2009-10-25T15:50:00.004Z

I was talking to a successful entrepreneur the other day about making money. He said it was easy to be successful. All you have to do is find a hunger and feed it. That's all there is to it.

Now when we start setting up blogs to make money, and read many of the blogging experts, they tell us to write about what we love, the things that really inspire and motivate us. But this is far from the whole picture.

If your passion is for some obscure subject, no matter how beautifully you express your subject you probably won't end up making much money, at least from blogging. Why? Simply because there isn't a hunger for something obscure. So not many people are going to feed upon your words.

Deciding on a blogging niche that will make you money is about, as I've previously said, giving people what they want - what they really want. Not what you think they should want or might want. It has to be something that readers are hungry for.

This is where the value of following trends comes into it's own. But better still if you can get into something before the mainstream has caught on to it's potential and hasn't realised that there will soon be a hunger for this particular trend.

The only problem with lots of trends is that they don't always last very long. So perhaps you need a niche where you can incorporate many trends as and when they are on the way up - technology, music, politics, celebrities and so on spring to mind.

As the man said find the hunger and feed it.

Good luck,
Mike

My latest Squidoo lens: Cornwall Walks

Making Money While On Holiday

2009-09-21T15:23:00.004+01:00

Away a little longer than expected and had a great time. For the final week of our break we stayed in a 14th century cottage - very creepy and creaky.

Back to reality. I've been checking my blog stats and the break doesn't seem to have done any harm to my blogs. I think once you have a lot of posts, on a blog, they will virtually tick over by themselves - with the help of the search engines that is.

A couple of things I did notice was that Zimbio sent one of my celeb blogs 600+ referrals over the last seven days. I think it's worth joining Zimbio as you can put your blog on 'automatic' and they will add posts to relevant sections of their website.

I've been doing this for ages and an extra 600 or so hits a week is a worthwhile boost for most blogs. I must add though that Zimbio works better for some niches than others. It doesn't do as well for Mike's Money Making Mission for example, but all extra traffic is welcome.

Showing Zimbio Referrals For One Of My Celeb Blogs
One thing I do when checking blog stats is to see what posts are getting the most hits. I then check the posts to make sure they carry some relevant up to date advertising - mostly in a text format. If not I add something. If a post is attracting visitors it makes sense to try and make some money out of it.

Must press on, lots to do.

Good luck,
Mike.

Heading East

2009-08-29T17:12:00.005+01:00

My wife and I have decided to take a break so we are off on a road trip for about 15 days. Leaving our town and heading east.

Will 'see' you when we get back.

As per usual, when we take a holiday, there will be no computers or phones etc. It's tough!

Good luck,
Mike

Shoes Make Money!

2009-08-27T15:54:00.003+01:00

I've been experimenting with various Amazon adverts to see which ones perform the best. I've never really done that well with this affiliate program. I get a few sales and make a bit a commission, but nothing too exciting.

One of the ads I tried was for their Endless.com store. Without much enthusiasm I plonked a header advert for this on one of my celebrity blogs.

Much too my surprise it's done exceedingly well.

The products are shoes and handbags, so they may not be suitable for all blogs, but they seem to appeal to celebrity fans.

Endless.com was set up by Amazon as (to quote them), "...an exciting shoe and handbag shopping experience. Endless.com is dedicated to providing the best prices, selection, and overall experience. With free overnight shipping, free return shipping, 100% price guarantee."

Now what I didn't realise, even when I put the ad on my celeb blog, was that the commission for sales is 15%, as opposed to Amazon's normal 4%. This obviously makes a big difference. Looking at my stats today I've just had $328.15 worth of orders which has given me $49.22 commission. If that continued I could make a decent amount every month.

The sales I've had, throughout August, have all been for shoes and not handbags.

I thought I'd just pass on the information as it might be useful to Amazon affiliates and earn you a few dollars. If you think, that is, your blog readers might be into shoes - but, come to think of it, isn't everyone into shoes?

Good luck,
Mike

Add Your Ad For Free: Place a free plug for your blog, website or lens.

Promote Your Blog And Make Money With She Told Me

2009-08-21T16:34:00.005+01:00

Here's a website where you can promote your blogs, Squidoo lenses, websites and so on, plus make a bit of money with AdSense.

The site I'm talking about is She Told Me.

Okay, it may not be completely original. You will no doubt have seen similar style sites but the advantage with this one is that it is reasonably new and has the potential to make some extra money with AdSense.

Once signed up, it only takes a few minutes - and it's free, of course - you can then start to submit links to She Told Me - your own and also other websites you come across that may be of interest to others.

There is a familiar pattern whereby you can vote up (or down) links and stories that have been submitted.

One major advantage, I haven't mentioned, is that with every link you submit your own link, to your main blog or website, will also shown. So if you submit enough stuff of interest you could have lots of links pointing at your blog / website.

How To Make Money From AdSense With She Told Me.

For every story / link that you submit a page is created and on this page will be your own AdSense ad block, with your AdSense ID number. You therefore earn money this way, but there is more.

You can also introduce others to She Told Me. For doing so, and to quote the website, for every member you introduce ...

You will have your AdSense ID displayed on every content pages this member submits, 100% of the time, for life! Even if this new member doesn't have an AdSense account!

In theory this could eventually add up to a healthy chunk of revenue.

The nitty gritty. Will She Told Me send visitors to your site? Will it earn you any money?

The honest answer is: I don't know for sure.

I've only just joined myself, so time will answer these questions. I will, of course, be updating you how I get on in the future.

In the meantime I can't see any downside to joining and having a go. It's still reasonably unknown. The 5th top referring user, for example, has only introduced 8 new members.

Sometimes you have to have a go at new things and get in early. If they work you could have a head start and do okay. If, say She Told Me, doesn't make you any money at the very least you'll have a few links pointing at your blog or website. This in turn could send you traffic.

Good luck,
Mike.

Just Like With Elvis Dead Blogs Make Money

2009-08-18T15:24:00.005+01:00

Elvis Presley is the top earning dead celeb. He, or rather his beneficiaries, rake in over $50 million a year. Charles Schulz the cartoonist, also deceased, still makes millions of dollars.

"So what's that got to do with blogging?" you may ask.

Probably not too much, but imagine if you had some 'dead blogs' which still make you money. You'd no doubt be pretty pleased, especially as you are alive and well!

I have several dead blogs that make me money. Okay, not millions - far from it - but they help to top up my blogging income.

Elvis, and those top earning dead celebs, have steady revenue streams from work they created when in their prime.

If we bloggers can create things of value within blogs - even dead blogs - then there is money to be made.

By something of value I mean something that people will want to search for. This could be information, a 'how to' article, photos, images or absolutely anything.

If people will search for it, on the search engines, then it is of value and should be monetised.

With my own 'dead blogs' I still pay them some attention now and again. If you couldn't buy Elvis music, photos, memorabilia then there would be no income. So his music isn't allowed to die, it's updated, re-mastered and so on and even promoted.

It's the same with dead blogs. If they have something of value update them occasionally, change the ads and so on. This doesn't have to take long but it keeps the dead blog alive - just as the Elvis memory is kept alive.

In fact, at times, it's an idea to actually create some dead blogs intentionally. If you come across anything 'of value' put it on the Internet. It could just make you an income for years to come.

Good luck,
Mike

Buy at AllPosters.com

Make Money With A Banner Exchange Program

2009-08-10T11:26:00.004+01:00

There are many ways to promote your blog or products for free on the Internet.

One way is by joining a banner exchange program.

These programs work as you would expect. In other words by running banner ads on your blog you will be able to have your ads published on other blogs / websites in exchange.

Most of these run on a like for like basis. Some, for example, offer points for every page impression on your blog and these will allow your ads to run on other blogs for the same amount of impressions. This makes a fair exchange.

Normally everything is done automatically by placing a supplied HTML code on your blog - and that's it.

An example of a website offering this service is NEObanners and, with their free service, there are statistics so you know how many banner impressions you have had etc.

If you need to make simple banners I often use Banner Fans where you can knock up a banner, of varying sizes, in a few minutes - well you can once you get the hang of it. If you sign up with them they will also store your banners together with the relevant HTML.

We all need to promote to make money and, if we can do it for free, so much the better.

Good luck,
Mike.

Squidoo is your free space on the Internet where you can promote your product or write about anything else - plus make some extra money.

How To Use Copyrighted Photos And Images On Your Blog

2009-07-30T15:04:00.007+01:00

Buy at AllPosters.com

It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Not sure how true this is but images and photos certainly improve the appearance of posts and blogs.

Sometimes however, without breaching copyright laws, it's hard to get the right image for a particular niche. There is, however, a way to have a choice of hundreds of thousands of copyright photos and images to use on your blogs for free.

What's more you could earn money as well.

The answer is the AllPosters affiliate program.

Many bloggers join AllPosters purely to use the photos and images available. But there is also the additional benefit of being able to make 20% commission on any orders you may get for photos, posters and other products.

AllPosters helps solve the problem of sourcing photos and images and has the added bonus of being able to make some extra money as well. This makes it an affiliate program worth considering.

In all honesty I doubt if you'll earn a mountain of commission but, as I often say, all profit is good profit - especially if it's a bit extra!

Webmasters Make $$$
Good luck,
Mike.

Give Away a Freebie And Make Money

2009-07-27T12:09:00.003+01:00

A good way to make money is to give something away for free.

That sounds a contradiction at first but, along with the freebie, you'll need an affiliate program or product to tie in with whatever you are giving away.

An example of this going round is an advert that says they will tell you how to make money for free.

So you click and go to the blog, or whatever, and they glowingly write about how they have made a bundle of money. What's more they are willing to give you the full details absolutely free - all you need is an email address. They stress that you will never have to pay them a cent or a penny but, if you do make a lot of money, a donation would be appreciated. They will, however, never ask for this.

With nothing to lose you give your email address and you are taken to another page which gives you the full free report on how to make money.

In this example it turns out to be a 'guaranteed' roulette system - which you can test out by playing it for free.

Again with nothing to lose you decide to give it a go. Ah, but you'll need somewhere to play roulette. And this is where they make their money by giving something away for free.

They are affiliates for several online casinos and helpfully suggest that one of these is used to try out the roulette system.

What they are doing, in a round-about way, is simply promoting affiliate programs - by giving something away for free.

There are heaps of ways to give a freebie and tie it in with a money making opportunity.

In a way it's what a lot of blogs are doing without realising it. They provide information, pics, news or whatever (for free) and visitors click on other things which makes the blogger money.

Giving away freebies makes money!

Good luck,
Mike.

DIY Dating. Get your own free dating website and make excellent commission.

30% Income For Doing Nothing

2009-07-18T14:13:00.005+01:00

I was looking through some blog earnings stats and noticed that with my FriendFinder affiliate account 35% of the money I have made has come via other affiliates I have introduced.

I followed this up by looking at some other affiliate programs I have promoted and, sure enough, about 30% of the money made comes from the efforts of people I have introduced.

I think this is already sufficient to get the obvious message across i.e. if I hadn't have also promoted the programs to others my income would have been about 30% less.

It's so easy to get enthused about an affiliate program and go like mad to promote whatever the products / services are. However, thinking longer term, the best bet is to also promote the scheme to others as a way to make money.

Terms vary on differing affiliate programs but most offer about 10% of the earnings of any introductions. With a few calculations the potential of this can be realised.

There is a reality check though about introducing others into affiliate programs: The majority will do either none or very little business. This is a fact and the way of the world with most sales or even MLM.

So you don't get too excited when someone signs up under you but, there again, don't get too deflated when they don't make you any money.

It's a numbers game, like so much in sales. Just keep plodding away and you'll hit upon a few jewels who will make you money. You might even come across a real biggy who'll earn you a mountain of cash.

With affiliate programs think:

(1) sales of the product and
(2) introducing others.

There's plenty of money to go round, there are billions of people in the world. All you have to do is present what you have to offer to as many people as possible.

As I've said before: Contact some people and make some money but contact lots of people and make lots of money.

It all goes back to: traffic. The right traffic, in the right numbers makes money.

Good luck,
Mike.

YouGov: Make extra money by completing surveys and polls for payment - genuine company.

The World Of Tumble-Logs Such As Tumblr

2009-07-12T15:22:00.006+01:00

In the previous post I talked about Posterous, the very easy to use Blog platform. Today I'll mention another similar website tumblr.com.

This is almost a cross between Twitter and a full blown blog.

It's easy to use and is built for quick blog posts, videos, photos, quotes and so on.

The advantage over Posterous is that it all looks more professional and there are dozens of templates to choose from.

One of the stalwarts of tumblr is Katy Perry, see photo, plus another couple of million people who have set up blogs on the site.

I dabbled in setting up a blog and it is a little more difficult than with Posterous but, once set up, posting is a piece of cake.

These sort of set-ups are now being known as tumble-logs, as opposed to blogs and are worth investigating.

It could be useful for promoting a full blown blog and generally getting known on the blogosphere. There is potential for the likes of tumblr, Posterous and indeed Twitter to be used as aids for making money.

Have a look at tumblr.com and see what you think.

Good luck,
Mike.

YouGov: Make extra money by completing surveys and polls for payment - genuine company.

The Easiest Place In The World To Set Up A Blog

2009-07-05T15:41:00.007+01:00

Looking for the easiest place to blog from anywhere in the world?

I wasn't! But I did come across Posterous, which I hadn't heard of before.

It's somewhere you can blog by using emails from any email address that you have registered with them. You can use several if you wish.

It really is that simple - no HTML etc needed. You can send them text, photos, MP3's, documents and videos (both links and files) and that's it! Whatever you send will become a blog post.

Posterous will also, if you wish, automatically update your accounts at Facebook, Twitter, Flickr etc. with your latest post.

You can make your blog public or keep it private for friends and family.

Okay, this all sounds okay but there is one snag: the layout is none too special, no fancy stuff. It's very basic in appearance.

I set up a Posterous blog out of curiousity. And sure enough it was live in minutes and the two posts I have sent by email were on the blog within seconds.

I can see that there are ways where it could be of use. I'm not sure if I'll bother with it myself at the moment but, if I can find a way for it to work for me, then I might just continue.

See what you think.

Good luck,
Mike.

YouGov: Make extra money by completing surveys and polls for payment - genuine company.

Squidoo Money Making Update

2009-06-30T15:39:00.005+01:00

I thought I'd do an update on Squidoo.

If I'm honest it's not going as well as I hoped in respect of making me money. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with Squidoo, it's a good site and there are benefits other than monetary.

I enjoy using the website, time permitting, but my major point of joining was to make money and this has been disappointing so far.

To earn commission the lenses (pages) you have made need to have a good Squidoo ranking. One that is under 2000. Now, as there are millions of lenses, it can be seen that to have one of the best 2000 is no easy task. I've done this and had several in the category but, through lack of time, the rankings have gradually dropped.

So what decides your ranking? Well it's another mysterious algorithm. From what I can see this is based on various things relative to the lens.

These 'things' include:

(a) Traffic - same old chestnut!
(b) Ratings stars - how other members rate your lenses
(c) Clicks Out - how many clicks are made to Google ads, Amazon, etc. etc.
(d) Goods Bought - have readers bought anything from, say, Amazon and eBay modules.
(e) Latest Updates - length of time since the lens was updated.
(f) Angel Blessings - some established members are called angels and they can bless lenses they think are exceptional. Blessings improve a lens ranking.

So there are quite a lot of things to constantly think about if you want to make money by having decent lens rankings.

It's not an easy money making ride and I feel it will take several months of continued effort to make anything worthwhile. Though you could just do it for the enjoyment and possible contacts you might make.

As I said earlier there are also other benefits to making lenses. They could, for example, be for your own products or affiliate programs or maybe to help drive traffic to your blog or website.

A few Squidoo lensmasters do claim to be making decent money but these appear, in the main, to be long established members.

To sum up Squidoo is a well run program and quite easy to use but getting regular, direct payments from Squidoo will take time and effort.

Good luck,
Mike.

A few of my Squidoo Lenses as examples: A Year In My Cornish Garden / Sidney Sock Goes Missing / Funny and Humorous Letters / Awful Jokes / Golf Jokes and Golf One Liners

Wonder Wheel For Michael Jackson Keywords

2009-06-27T14:47:00.005+01:00

Have you been using the new Google Wonder Wheel to help find more keywords or other related searches?

I've only just come across this and have found it useful when writing articles and posts. All the more we can establish popular keywords and phrases and what is being searched the more successful our search engine optimisation.

Better seo brings better traffic, at least that's the theory.

To find the Wonder Wheel do a normal Google search (and remember the suggestions in the drop down box are also very useful as keywords) and on the results page at the top left you'll see 'Show options'. Click on this and the Wonder Wheel link is towards the bottom of the list shown.

The Wonder Wheel will show usually 6- 8 phrases associated with whatever you searched. The example below shows the current Wonder Wheel when searching for 'Michael Jackson'.

The 'Show options' list (to the left of the example above) also includes other helpful links to stuff you are searching for - which, again, may come in handy when writing your article or post.

Every little extra helps. The right keywords and phrases make the world of difference to attracting traffic from search engines - especially Google. And, of course, more traffic = more money.

Good luck,
Mike.

YouGov: Make extra money by completing surveys and polls for payment - genuine company.

Received Money from YouGov

2009-06-22T14:49:00.005+01:00

I've received another cheque / check from YouGov. They are the surveys and pollster company who are genuine - there are many dodgy ones about.

YouGov won't make you rich but I know that there are a section of readers who want to make a little extra cash or pin money. As you will see below my cheque is for £50 - which is about $100, to keep it in round figures.

So who are YouGov? This is how their Panel Manager Tom Burgess explained things:

You have probably seen reports of YouGov in the media: we are regular pollsters for the Daily telegraph, The Sunday Times, Sky News and others. We also do research for a wide range of other clients from businesses to charities to local government to utilities. In giving us your views, you are therefore providing your input in a wide variety of areas, from informing the debate on a public policy issue, to ensuring that a product meets the needs of consumers.

Though the above refers to the UK YouGov are active in USA, Austria, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Middle East, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden.

From my own experience and enquiries they are a genuine, trustworthy organisation. To join click here. If you are outside of the UK, after clicking, you will see a Non-UK Resident section on the right of the page where you can click on your country.

As I've said it won't bring you in a heap of money but it will make you a little extra for completing surveys. Give it a try and see what you think.

Moving on: Further to my previous post, below is a genuine copy of my commission statement for one of my FriendFinder accounts!

My commission now runs into millions - and that's just for two weeks! They 'pay-out' every two weeks. I won't hold my breath!

Good luck,
Mike.

What A Lot Of Money!

2009-06-19T14:52:00.004+01:00

I thought I'd show you a genuine copy of what I saw when I logged into one of my affiliate accounts with the FriendFinderGroup.

It made me smile.

What do you reckon?!

Bing Referrals To Blogs

2009-06-15T14:25:00.007+01:00

I've noticed that Microsoft's new search engine Bing is now making referrals to my blogs. On most of my blogs it has shot into second position after Google (of course) for search engine referrals.

I look at this as being something positive. Microsoft are keen to see Bing out-search Google, which would be quite something. It's still very early days of their five year plan but they seem to be already catching Yahoo (at least with my blog referrals!)

As can be seen above, on one of my blogs over 9% of the traffic is by way of Bing.

I must admit that I haven't used Bing all that much myself to do searches but it has a certain likeability about it. Perhaps it might just be the competition needed to rival Google - well, one day at least.

Microsoft says of Bing:

Bing is specifically designed to build on the benefits of today's search engines but begins to move beyond this experience with a new approach to user experience and intuitive tools to help customers make better decisions, focusing initially on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.

So what does the word Bing mean? According to Microsoft it's the 'the sound of found' - not too sure about that. Some say it stands for Bing Is Not Google.

Whatever it means, a quality search engine to (eventually) rival Google must be a good thing.

Good luck,
Mike.

Golf Jokes and Golf One Liners

Make Money By Giving People What They Want

2009-06-12T14:40:00.004+01:00

It seems a bit of a glib answer but, when asked how I managed to get quite high traffic on some of my blogs, I answered that it was because I tried to give people what they wanted.

If readers want, say, Katy Perry it's no use giving them the Rolling Stones, if they want Internet Riches it's no good telling them about The History of Money.

This means that you have to try and tailor your blog to your readers requirements.

There are two basic ways to do this.

The easy way is to get it right from the beginning. In other words you define your exact niche before you set up the blog.

Doing this should attract the right readers - they will find you. Providing, of course, that your niche is in demand and not some flight of fancy. It means a little groundwork, prior to setting up the blog, to make sure there is a decent possible readership, for whatever it is you wish to impart on the world.

The second way is to follow trends. Pick ones on the way up, new things, before the mass of bloggers cotton on.

It's better to write about a celebrity, for example, who is just getting known than to hone in on the likes of Paris Hilton or Angelina and Brad where there will be hundreds and thousands of other posts - most churning out the same stuff.

Blogging to make money is simple, at least in theory. Give people what they want and tie this in with compatible products and affiliate programs.

QED.

Good luck,
Mike.

YouGov. Make extra money by completing surveys and polls for payment - genuine company.

Clicking Traffic Makes Money

2009-06-08T14:53:00.004+01:00

When I start looking at blog statistics it does make me wonder if I have made the most of the traffic I have received.

On one of my blogs, for example, I am coming up to 1 million unique visitors, which equates to getting on for 2.4 million page views.

When I look at figures like this I ask myself the obvious 'if only' things like ... if only all of these vistors had paid me $1 or even 50c each visit. Of course life and blogging isn't like that, or that easy.

The reality is that the pages have to have something of interest to visitors which makes them want to get clicking.

I've always said that traffic = money and I stick with this statement, as a percentage will always click on something - it's simply what happens. But it's clicking traffic that = big money.

So the more people click the more money we will make. It's one of the reasons why ads should be geared to whatever is being written. And this is why I like text ads following a post. The post then becomes a selling opportunity in it's own right, with the side columns and maybe header postion there as 'back up.'

I guess it's getting the balance right.

Best results, I find, are always from posts where they contain links within the body of the article. They have to be relevant and helpful to the subject matter and, if they are, readers will click.

If you can get traffic and thenentice them to click there's a lot of money to be made.

Good luck,
Mike.

Ads: Mirror CashBack - FREE £5! Earn CashBack on your everyday shopping. Over 2000 retailers. Join for free and get £5! Plus earn £5 for every friend you refer.

My Love For Cheesecake recipes. If you love cheesecakes take a look here.

Making Money With Diamonds

2009-06-04T15:52:00.004+01:00

Amazon USA have moved into the world of diamonds whereby customers can create their own style rings and at a price within their budget. Perhaps this could be a good money maker for bloggers.

A special Create Your Own Ring page has been set up on Amazon which has sets of sliding bars to help choose diamond shape, price, carat, cut, colour, clarity and so on. Customers can click the 'see results' button at any time.

It all sounds ideal for engagement rings and the like. Instead of plodding round the shops, hoping to see the right design, this can be all done from the comfort of home and customers will get exactly what they are looking for.

Plus, of course, there could be some decent commission to be made as diamond rings are generally good value items.

As far as the customer is concerned Amazon state: "We can sell the same ring as a conventional jeweler, for about a third less than their price." Now that must be a real incentive to buy from Amazon.

Other plus points quoted by Amazon, "... all of our diamonds are graded by highly trained gemologists and come with a certificate, you can be confident our diamonds measure up to their stated qualities. And because our diamonds are certified conflict-free in accordance with the Kimberly Process, your customers can buy with a clear conscience."

As with any product you need the right customers but, with a 'third off' normal prices, Amazon diamonds might be worth a test on various niche blogs.

Good luck,
Mike.

YouGov: Make money by completing surveys and polls for payment - genuine company. (I have recived payments from them - Mike)

Get Spidered More Often For More Traffic

2009-06-01T16:06:00.004+01:00

Updating a blog regularly does have advantages, providing you have the time and the inclination of course.

One of these advantages is that your blog will be spidered more often by Google. I have found this to be the case on a couple of blogs which I update at least once a day.

"So what," you may say.

As I see it the more often your blog is spidered the quicker you get seen in the search engine results. In the past, where I have followed hot trends, I've had a number one or two ranking on Google within one or two hours of posting.

If you can therefore get in on an early trend, something on the way up, it can pay dividends in the way of big traffic. I did this with a celebrity story, on a blog I update regularly, and got over 40,000 hits in a day which were mainly Google referrals.

So, yes, a regularly updated blog, with the right content, can help towards making a decent income from blogging.

Good luck,
Mike.

Your Business Name Could Spell Success Or Failure

2009-05-29T15:57:00.005+01:00

I often take a look at Michael Fortin's website as he knows what he is talking about - or at least appears to!

An interesting article he has recently published is Brain-Burning Brand Names Boost Business. He talks about how important it is to choose the correct name for your business, product or domain name. He reckons that this is 'often the single, most important business decision you will ever make', and it's difficult to argue with this.

In his article he writes of his five basic guidelines for choosing a name. These are:

Suggestiveness
Spelling
Size
Singsong
Scalability

If we look at suggestiveness this means that it tells you what the product/website/blog is all about from it's name. With singsong he talks about how the name sounds, using perhaps alliteration, which is often known as 'head rhymes'. Examples of this are Coca-Cola, SiteSell, Krispy Kreme, No Brainer Blinds and so on. They stick in the mind.

Often we set up a blog, website or prodcut without giving it's name a lot of thought, when in essence it could be the tipping point of becoming successful.

Read the full article on Michael Forlin's website - link as above. Another article he has written on a similar theme is How To Make Your Name Memorable. It's food for thought.

Good luck,
Mike.

And now, have a smile: Funny Humorous Letters / Awful Jokes / Sidney Sock Goes Missing / Tracy Tremble Virginity Shock

Lawrence of Arabia Will Hopefully Make Me A Few Dollars

2009-05-25T15:16:00.004+01:00

One of the good things about going away for a few days is that it gives you something to write about on Squidoo!

As I was in Dorset for three days I have written about this on a new Squidoo lens called Dorset, Thomas Hardy and T.E. Lawrence.

I don't expect this to make me a heap of money but with Squidoo the more lenses you write the more, at least in theory, you should be able to make.

I say in theory because, as with normal blogging, the lens still has to be reasonably well written and will need promoting.

It takes longer to make a Squidoo lens (that's a page, if you haven't heard much about them before) than a straight forward blog post but, as I see it, even if each one only makes a few dollars a month this can add up if you have lots of lenses. So Squidoo isn't instant big money, it's something that develops over time.

With Squidoo you can write about virtually anything (legal) that you wish and each lens can be about something completely different. This can be, in some ways, easier than blogging about a particular niche as the world is your oyster.

I'm quite happy with the way things are going so far with Squidoo.

Good luck,
Mike.

Get Your Free Plugs And Free Adverts

2009-05-16T16:43:00.002+01:00

I've been looking at Plug Boards and Plugs. I'm not sure if you have seen them but they are websites where you can place free adverts in the form of buttons or banners.

As an example I have started a Plug Board myself: Add Your Ad For Free where you can enter a free advert and this will go live straight away.

Now I can't tell you if these Plug Boards will bring you much in the way of referrals but I'm testing them out and have been leaving my ads all over the place.

It's really going back to my blogging philosophy from when I first started blogging. I reckoned that one of the ways to get traffic was to leave my URL absolutely anywhere possible. So I hit the Blog Directories, Forums, Free Ad Places, Profiles and so on and so on. If I could leave a link I did.

I didn't, back then, realise that links were also useful for things like PageRank but remarkably Mikes Money Making Mission soon got a PageRank5 because of me doing this. My PR has been thumped since them because Google doesn't like the selling of links which I was once, innocently, doing. But that's a whole different story.

Anyway, back to Plug Boards. The only problem with these might be the fact that you need banners and/or buttons. However this is easily overcome by going to a website such as Banner Fans where you can create free buttons and banners within minutes. They will even store your banners for you and provide links, again for free. (The buttons illustrated on this post were ones I knocked up in about 30 minutes.)

I'm sure that big established bloggers will sneer at the thought of Plug Boards. They will talk of writing articles and other ways to get traffic and links.

I'm sure these 'other ways' are probably more effective but a link in is a link in.

Don't forget to place your free plug on Add Your Ad For Free.

I'm away now for about five or six days on business so, until then, happy plugging!

Good luck,
Mike.

Lists Make Money And Attract Blog Traffic

2009-05-14T15:16:00.002+01:00

I have been grumbling recently that I haven't been doing too good with Amazon, it hasn't brough me in much income. I thought, however, that I wouldn't just give in and have tried creating some Top 10 Amazon Lists as a trial on a couple of my blogs - and they seem to have been effective, well at least I have had some orders.

This is the sort of thing I mean. Prepare a Top 10 list of books, DVDs or absolutely any other Amazon product relative to the niche of the blog. For example with Mikes Money Making Mission I could start off with a list made up of the best selling books on blogging.

1. WordPress For Dummies
Bloggers love WordPress! If you're ready to start using this free blogging software, WordPress For Dummies, 2nd Edition is just what you and your blog need to make a splash.

2. ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
The Problogger website is where bloggers worldwide go for advice and information on enhancing their blog's presence. Whether you're just starting out or have been blogging for years, these two professional bloggers show you how to turn your passion for blogging into extra revenue.

3. Blogging For Dummies
Everybody’s doing it! And while that logic never got far with your mother, it’s a fine reason to start blogging, especially if you have a business to build or a cause to promote. Well-run blogs do more than offer an outlet for your thoughts. They’ve actually influenced everything from a company’s image to the outcome of a local election.

4. The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging
The editors of The Huffington Post -the most linked-to blog on the web - offer an A-Z guide to all things blog, with information for everyone from the tech-challenged newbie, looking to get a handle on this new way of communicating, to the experienced blogger looking to break through the clutter of the Internet. With an introduction by Arianna Huffington, the site's cofounder and editor in chief, this book is everything you want to know about blogging, but didn't know who to ask.

5. Start Your Own Blogging Business
Blogs are one of the Internet's fastest-growing phenomena - and one of the best and easiest ways to make money online. Learn how to choose a topic, start a blog and attract thousands of avid readers. Then use your blog to generate income from advertisers, promotions, affiliate links and other techniques-all from your own home.

.... and so on.

I've always found that lists do okay: 50 secrets, 40 ways, top 10's and so on - about almost anything. They often get reasonable positions on search engines as well. Plus people seem to like them. One of my most visited posts this week is, again, 40 Ways To Get More Blog Traffic.

Lists work generally so why not with Amazon as well.

Good luck,
Mike.

50 Article Directories For More Traffic

Article Directories Can Help Bring Extra Blog Traffic

2009-05-11T19:41:00.006+01:00

Most 'experts' reckon that writing articles and publishing them in the various Article Directories is a way to get more traffic to your blog.

With that idea in my I have created a list of 50 Article Directories where bloggers can submit their articles on just about any subject. Your will find this list on Squidoo in my lens 50 Article Directories For More Traffic. The Directories are listed in PageRank order.

The value of using these Directories is threefold.

(1) They can help produce traffic to a blog.
(2) They can give you good links - from the Directory itself and also from other blogs and websites who reproduce your articles - in doing so they have to include links to your blog.
(3) These extra links can help with improving PageRank.

Article Directories are also a source of material should you ever be stuck for something to post on your blog, though you must follow the rules specified. There is a vast array of subjects.

Have a look at the Squidoo lens mentioned for more information.

Good luck,
Mike.

Further reading:
40 Free Ways To get More Blog Traffic
40 Blog Directories
Over 50 Social Networking Websites

Money Making With Amazon

2009-05-07T15:26:00.005+01:00

I have written before, here, about how I have never really been all that successful with Amazon from a money making perspective. I've done okay with their UK website and received some payments but nothing really, what I would consider to be, worthwhile amounts.

I was reading teatreebergamot's post Why Affiliates Should Avoid Amazon Associates and I agree with what she writes.

It's all about cookies and how Amazon sets these for just 24 hours. The problem with this is that many people take longer than 24 hours to make up a purchase. So if you send a prospective customer today to Amazon, and the next day they order something, after the 24 hours is up, you get nought - zero commission.

In the post I have mention the writer shows, through stats from another affiliate program, how the majority of people purchase after 24 hours. I've thought about this and, if I'm making a decent sized purchase, I often don't buy for a couple of days - after I've done price checks and thought things over etc. I did this recently with a television I bought online, it took me two days to decide.

So, is it partly the 24 hour cookies that is preventing a lot of us from earning any decent commission with Amazon?

I say 'partly' because there are also other things to consider as well, but it's something to think about.

Good luck,
Mike.

Sidney Sock Goes Missing. Suspense, sadness, sex (well sort of, but safe for all to read) and mystery. What has happened to Sidney Sock? Photos of sightings. Have you ever lost a sock?

A Suzi Perry Suggestion

2009-05-04T15:37:00.007+01:00

Following on from my Hippo posts I just wanted to touch briefly on keywords again.

I mentioned previously where to put chosen keywords within a post and here is an example of how to choose the right keywords.

You need the right words, which people are going to search for, and there are several free Keyword Suggestion Tools about to help with this. Some are also described as Keyword Popularity Tools - the one at Free Web Submission is such an example.

I entered the words 'make money' into their tool and they came up with the following keywords in order of popularity of what people are searching for:

make money online
make a craft money tree
how to make money
how much money do you have to make to file taxes
bail bonds make money
make money at home
ways for kids to make money
how much money does a zoologist make
how to make money online
how much money does an archaeologist make
make money from home
make money fast free
ways to make money

This, therefore, is a ready made list of keywords / phrases I can choose from plus some of them can also be used as ideas for subject matter for future posts.

This works for must niches. I use it with my celebrity blogs to find out what people are searching about a particular celeb.

For instance, I considerably boosted the traffic on one of my Squidoo lenses called Everything Perry which wasn't performing particularly well. The lens, as the title suggests, is about absolutely anything to do with Perry, i.e. my surname.

I have one section on the lens for celebs called Perry. I fed in one of the names - Suzi Perry (a UK television presenter) - and two of the top five keyword phrases were 'Suzi Perry ill' and 'Suzy Perry Illness'.

I had no idea she was, or had been, ill but I did some quick research, found out the details and added these to the lens. I wish her well soon.

The result has been hundreds of referrals a day from Google. So a lens that wasn't doing too well improved greatly.

Okay I know some will immediately say something negative about this, but that's okay because I'm happy with the result and that's what matters.

I stick by the mantra that all traffic is good traffic.

Good luck,
Mike.

Have a laugh: Awful Jokes and Funny Humorous Letters

Make Money Using befunky and zazzle

2009-04-30T14:45:00.010+01:00

Sorry for the gruesome photos but I have been messing around with the befunky website and have used a photo of myself - as on the right.

befunky's claim to fame is that it can, 'Turn your photos into incredible artwork with one click.' Maybe a bit over the top but the website does allow you to manipulate the appearance of photos and images. It's all very easy to use.

There is obviously much better software to do this but if you want something easy befunky could be useful.

I've also been looking at zazzle and in a way befunky could tie in with this.

With zazzle you can set up your own gallery of products with your own designs. They have over 250 products, such things as t-shirts, cards, mugs, skateboards, mousepads, posters, calendars and so on. On each of these you can put your very own designs.

The design could be something to do with the niche of your blog or any design that you think appropriate and is marketable. You fix your own profit margin on your design products.

Of course, as with any affiliate style program, to make money you need traffic - there is never an easy ride.

I'll probably have a go with zazzle, subject to time permitting, and use some photos I have taken over the years and perhaps add some sort of slogan. I'll give it some thought.

So befunky and zazzle could very well go hand in hand. If you put on your thinking cap there are lots of uses and potential for them both.

One bit of advice: use a better photo than I have!

Good luck,
Mike.

PLEASE NOTE: Ignore the post before this one. It's a bit of an experiment I'm doing at the moment - if I get anywhere with it I'll give you details later - Thanks, Mike.

Tracy Tremble Virgin Shock

2009-04-30T14:38:00.003+01:00

There has been some talk going round about Tracy Tremble, the alter ego of a certain celebrity.

First the 26 year old let it slip that she was still a virgin, much to the surprise of many celeb watchers. After all Tracy is no shrinking violet when it comes to her appearance. There is a skit on this fact on Tracy Tremble Virginity Shock.

Now it appears that there are photos of Tracy, which have come to light, showing her in, shall we say, a state of undress - if it is actually her, of course. But, if it is proven to be her, this probably won't do her any harm judging by experiences of other celebs who have been caught on camera off guard.

Tracy Tremble could be a name to watch out for on the London celeb beat.

2009-04-27T14:59:00.005+01:00

Flipping heck, your blog might be worth thousands!

Flipping (selling) blogs is a way to make money. At least that's what I'm told but, as I haven't ever sold a blog myself, I can only go on what other people say.

So what's your blog worth?
The general rule seems to be to multiply your current monthly income by 12. In other words if you earn say $500 per month the blog should be 'worth' around $6000 in theory.

There are other variables to be considered though. To get this sort of amount you would probably have to have a proper domain name with blog hosted by someone other than one of the free hosting services.

Other than income another way to roughly value a blog is to use one of the free website valuation sites such as YourValueWebsite. I tried this out and this was the results.

They valued my 'adult style' celeb blog CelebTease.com at $5236.

I also checked out two blogspot blogs: Celebrity Insider was valued at only $550 and Mike's Money Making Mission $1587.

Oh and I also checked the Squidoo website valuation. It clcoked in at $3,118,454.

YourValueWebsite estimation isn't based on any income figures so can't really give a 100% accurate valuation.

Flipping blogs is worth thinking about. Either take on a flagging blog and build it up or search for a profitable niche and create a blog to sell at a later date.

There are always ways to make money.

Good luck,
Mike.

World War 2 Photos. Lost photos published of London WW2 damage and destruction plus other WW2 lost documents.

Ten People Can Lead To Money Making Millions

2009-04-22T14:54:00.008+01:00

I was reading something on Seth Godin's blog that I thought might be food for thought. Seth is the guy who launched Squidoo back in 2006 and turned it into one of the top 500 most visited websites. Whoops, it was actually 523rd today!

Anyway this is what he wrote:

First, ten
This, in two words, is the secret of the new marketing.

Find ten people. Ten people who trust you/respect you/need you/listen to you...

Those ten people need what you have to sell, or want it. And if they love it, you win. If they love it, they'll each find you ten more people (or a hundred or a thousand or, perhaps, just three). Repeat.

If they don't love it, you need a new product. Start over.

Your idea spreads. Your business grows. Not as fast as you want, but faster than you could ever imagine.

This approach changes the posture and timing of everything you do.

You can no longer market to the anonymous masses. They're not anonymous and they're not masses. You can only market to people who are willing participants. Like this group of ten.

This immediately got me thinking back to my network marketing days and multi-level marketing in general. But, if you think about what he has written, it's really a legitimate marketing idea for any blog, product or whatever.

Instead of massive budgets and outlays it could be the small Internet blogger's answer to promoting whatever it is, that he or she wants to promote.

Build a reputation and then cash in on it. If your friendly contacts like whatever it is, as sure as eggs is eggs, they will tell others who will do the same ad nauseam.

It may sound like a pyramid, and in a way it is, but it's how word of mouth and virals work. It's how, say, a good restaurant gets known.

As I say food for thought.

Good luck,
Mike.

P.S. As I've mentioned Squidoo these are a few of my latest Squidoo lenses: A year In My Cornish Garden / Monumental Hotel Funchal And Madeira Reviews / Awful Jokes and my top rated lens is Making Money With Free Blogs. As you can see you can write about virtually anything on Squidoo and can make money doing so - can't be bad!

AdEngage Money Making Test Review

2009-04-19T15:26:00.005+01:00

I started a money making test on AdEngage on the 3rd of April - see my post Money Making Test: AdEngage.

This is how I have got on and, as you will see, it hasn't gone too well. All I have managed to earn in 16 days is a derisory $1.82!

The Stats:

Period: April 3 to April 18 (inclusive) - 16 days

Page Impressions: 86440

Number of clicks: 63

Earnings: $1.82

To sum this up, on the blog I tested AdEngage on I only had one click per 1372 page impressions and each click was worth only 0.0289 cents.

As a comparison I get about 35 cents per click overall with AdSense so 63 clicks would have given me $22.05 but ...

... with AdSense and 86550 page impressions I would have expected to have at least 216 clicks and this would have earned me $75.30 in the same period.

I'm actually underestimating AdSense figures and per click revenue.

Perhaps it's not completely fair to compare AdEngage and AdSense as there are variations as to how they work. With AdEngage, for example, it's possible - at least in theory - to sell ads on your blog or website through them. This would supplement earnings, but I haven't managed to do this.

On this short money making test I feel, no I know, that I could get a much, much superior return for the space utilised than I have with AdEngage.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Good luck,
Mike.

See also:
Making Money With AdSense

The Beginners Guide To Keywords and SEO

2009-04-14T11:59:00.007+01:00

The previous post was really a beginners guide to using keywords and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Okay it was very basic but I remember when I started blogging I hadn't even heard of keywords and certainly wasn't aware of any form of SEO. I had no idea what was required to get a reasonable position in the search engine results.

So for those who might be as naive as I was let's look at the basics of keywords and SEO.

Firstly keywords.

As I have said I didn't know what they were when I started. I later found out that they are words which you think / hope other people may use to enter into the likes of Google as a search.

You also hope that, if anyone does search for these, your own blog or website will be towards the top of the search results and this will therefore get referrals to your blog.

If we look at the previous post the keywords I picked out were Pointless Hippo.

Yes, silly words but they are for demonstration purposes only and, sure enough, if you do a search on Google for these, that post is in number one position. Nothing clever in this, it's simply following a few basics.

Firstly the keywords should be in certain positions within a post.

(1) In the Post Title
(2) Towards the beginning of the main text.
(3) Further on in the text and
(4) At the end of the post

I also find it helps to include the words singly within the post as well. So I used hippo, hippos and pointless within the main body of the text.

To reinforce the words I also used them in the 'alt' option for the photo of the hippo. In other words if you hold the cursor over the photo the words 'pointless hippo' are shown.

And that is really the basics of keywords but ...

... because you do this it doesn't mean you are guaranteed a top spot. What if hundreds of people have done the same thing? And with some popular keywords or phrases it could be thousands and thousands of webmasters who have used them.

So with smaller blogs, beginners blogs you have to pick the right words, perhaps secondary to the obvious ones - but still words that people will actually use to do a search. (Obviously not many people are going to enter 'Pointless Hippo' for instance!)

This is where, what are called, long tail keywords can be useful - see The Long Tail Way To Make Money.

To help you choose your keywords use a Keyword Suggestion Tool such as the one at WordTracker Keywords - it's free to use. Enter your main word and see what combinations come up.

Now, as I'm keeping this very simple, let's move on.

You've chosen your keywords, put them in the positions suggested and have published your post - what next?

The secret Google algorithm has lots of aspects which it considers when deciding what blog or website to place where in it's search engine results.

An important one is links into your post and better still if these links are the same as your keywords. In my example the link Pointless Hippo would be the one to use.

Also use your keywords as 'tags' or 'labels' for your post

I'm going to leave it there, even though there are other points to consider.

To recap choose your keywords carefully, enter them in appropriate places within a post and try to get links containing your keywords.

Regular practise of these principles will help to get search engine referrals and there is heaps of info on the Internet to enlarge on this and to fine tune them.

Seek and you shall find - you might even come across a pointless hippo.

Good luck,
Mike.

Ad: Monumental Lido Hotel, Funchal, Madeira Reviews

Pointless Hippo Not So Good For Making Money

2009-04-09T16:21:00.006+01:00

A few random thoughts, some of which may make sense!

I've often quoted that, with blogging, traffic equals money and I haven't changed my mind about this. There are, however, different grades of traffic. Targeted traffic is obviously superior for making money whereas Pointless Hippo traffic is, well, probably pointless.

This is why it makes me smile when pitched with the idea that such and such company will guarantee me a number one placing on the Google search engine. Of course the catch is that most of us can get high in the search engine rankings with words such as Pointless Hippo. In fact that's exactly what I'm trying to do now! But will this do us, or in this instance me, much good?

Now if someone could guarantee me a top ranking with something like 'make money' I might just be interested. But if they can only get me there with some obscure keyword or keywords then it's all a wasted exercise - or is it?

If, for example, I can get a good position with words associated with, say, hippos any referrals - should there actually be any - won't really be interested in this money making blog and are therefore unlikely to earn me much money.

But I still stick by the premise that all traffic is good traffic because there will be a small percentage, of even hippo loving people, who will also be interested in making money. The percentage won't be as high as with proper targeted traffic but, the more people who see something, the greater the number of clicks on the ads - regardless of how they arrived at the blog. At least that's my theory.

I've previously written about having certain keywords, such as Mikes Money Making, in good positions on Google (the phrase is number one at the moment) and immediately people say, "Yes, but how many people will search for Mikes Money Making?" Maybe not many but the fact is that some do, and also for Money Making Mission (which is also number one on Google at the moment).

My real point is that anyone, who knows a little about SEO, can get a good position on Google, even a Pointless Hippo. But you'll no doubt say, "Who on earth will search for something like that?"

My pointless random thoughts now over. Get the drift?

Good luck,
Mike.

Hippo Images and Photos For More Traffic

Money Making Test - AdEngage

2009-04-06T15:46:00.003+01:00

I thought I would try out an alternative to AdSense for text ads on various blogs. There are a lot of choices about so I picked out one at random and came up with AdEngage.

Now I must admit that I hadn't heard of them previously but they are based in California and claim, "AdEngage operates a major online advertising network that displays over 12 billion ads on over 4,500 websites each month."

The text ads are easy to put on websites or blogs (enter some simple HTML) and ads can be on sites within minutes - no pre-approval required.

There is a choice of ad categories: Everyone, Teen and Adult. 'Everyone' is 'safe' and suitable for all websites. In each category it's also possible to opt out of ads for certain products or services you may not like.

Publishers may also set a rate for ads should an advertiser specifically want to advertise on their website/blog.

What do you get paid?
There official answer is: "On the 15th of each month, AdEngage pays the webmaster or publisher 75% of all the income generated from ad sales on the website. This is believed to be one of the highest revenue shares in the industry."

This is a little vague, as far as I'm concerned, but time will no doubt bring a more detailed answer via stats produced.

I've only been using the ads on a couple of blogs for about 48 hours so obviously no conclusions as yet. I'll keep you updated as to how this compares with AdSense in due course.

Good luck,
Mike.

Ad: DIY Dating. Get your own free dating website and make excellent commission rate.

Ten Ways To Get Web Traffic Fast - And Free

2009-04-06T15:16:00.004+01:00

A guest article today:

Ten Ways To Get Web Traffic Fast - And Free
by James Gladwin

There are several ways to get website traffic fast and free, and I'm going to share ten niche ways with you.

Article Submission:
You don't need to be an award winning expert on the topic you are writing about - just pick an area that is related to the theme of your website, do a bit of research using a search engine and before you know it you will have more knowledge on that subject than most.

Write in a relaxed, straightforward way. And, of course, when you add your details at the end of your article, make certain that you include your web address as well.

URL submission:
This sounds so obvious, yet so many people overlook it. Website URL submission is about getting more links to your website to help your website get high ranked on major search engines, thus getting more visitor traffic by, well, submitting your website URL to the major search engines. You can buy or subscribe to software that will do this, but it is quite possible to get a good return by submitting manually.

Social Bookmarking:
Social bookmarking is a way for Internet users to store, classify, share, search and discover Internet resources that they find useful. Since social bookmarks are saved online, users are able to access them from anywhere - at home, at work or while travelling.

These lists can be accessible to the public by users of a specific network or website. What you need to do first is register with a social bookmarking site which allows you to store and tag bookmarks. Most social bookmarking services allow users to search for bookmarks which are associated with given "tags", and rank the resources by the number of users which have bookmarked them. This means that other visitors and members of social bookmarking sites can search for resources by topic, category, keyword, tags, or popularity to see what others have saved. As a user, social bookmarking sites let you find useful, informative resources through pages that have been tagged because others have found them to be valuable sources. Voila - more web traffic. Free.

Forum Posting:
Forum posting is a hands down alternative to paid advertising methods. For only a few hours of work every week, you can capture batches of interested leads everyday. The more forums you contribute to, the more you will gain traffic. If you are an active forum poster, you will also get good feel about the kind of products that are hot on the market.

Please don't overlook the forum signature or commonly called resource box - it's a powerful free advertising tool for you. What you must do is edit your forum signature. Basically, a curiosity inducing one-liner and a link to your website is great. Once you have edited and saved your signature, it will appear at the bottom of all your comments in the forum discussions. That means, the more you participate in the discussions in the forums, the more people see your semi-ad written on your signature. I promise, this will encourage people to visit your website, and hopefully buy from you.

Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate Marketing is one of the best ways to get the word out about your website and can be done with very little technical expertise and therefore is easy to start up. If you have a product or service you believe in, visit a site such as ClickBank and open an account. Follow the simple instructions to gain affiliates - and traffic.

Press Releases:
It's a fact that a well-written Press Release can dramatically increase your sales, expose your company to the masses, and greatly enhance the image of your business or products. Publicity is the most cost-effective web traffic building marketing tool there is, and, surprisingly, web traffic can be generated by ink and paper!

Classified Ads:
Again, it's easy to associate Classified Ads with yesterday's technology, but they are extremely cheap and a one line product or service description, together with your website, will pay dividends.

Blog Comments:
If you are an avid blog follower, you have to include Blog Commenting in your web traffic arsenal. You will almost always find a "comments" link at the end of each post. You will know that good blog commenters add to the discussion and are known as knowledgeable, informative, friendly and engaged. Join them!

Facebook:
Don't forget that you can use Facebook to its full potential to attract more visitors to your website. You can get away from just interacting with your school or college friends and start interacting with people within your industry or other industries that you want to get into.

An easy way to do this is to join groups that interest you as well as make friends with people that you want to get to know. Fill out your profile (fully) - the best profile on Facebook is a complete one.

Videos:
Finally, why not make a video and post to video sites too! This is not a Warner Bros. effort! Your PC or Mac may well have a webcam, or you can borrow a camcorder or Flip. Write a brief script - lights- camera - action - and upload to YouTube. (Just remember to be sure to link it back to you.)

Well - there you are. Not all of the ten suggestions I've outlined may appeal, but if you select three or four, stick with them, and implement them on a regular basis, you will see your web traffic increase significantly. My best to you.

About the Author
Did you find these suggestions helpful? Is your website making you money? Go to: http://www.ultrasimplewebtraffic.com to find out more and claim your free visitor traffic mini course by James Gladwin.

Make Money Searching The Internet

2009-04-01T14:53:00.006+01:00

Tom, a reliable blogger I have known for a couple of years, has introduced me to Homepages-friends which is a money making program where he has just paid him.

I have to be honest and say that this isn't really my cup of tea but I know many readers do like these sort of programs. Tom has received £47, which is just under $100, via PayPal and the opportunity is worldwide.

So what is it all about?
It's about being paid to search the Internet. In other words instead of searching through Google, Yahoo or whoever you do your searches via Homepages-friends. Obviously searches must appear to be genuine and not simply searching for searching sake to fiddle the system. There are guidelines in place to cover this.

There is also more money to be made by introducing friends to the program. Payments are made on three levels. On the first level you 'earn' 10% of the revenue Homepages-friends receive from your friend's searches. There is a further 5% on level 2 and 2.5% on level 3.

Okay, I don't think this will make you rich but, if you are looking for a little extra cash for doing something you probably already do most days (i.e. search the Internet) it could well be of interest. Full info at Homepages-friends.

Good luck,
Mike.

Apologies - My Blog Was Identified As Spam!

2009-03-31T15:55:00.006+01:00

I've had a bit of trouble with Blogger. They identified this blog as a spam blog - which it isn't!

Their email to me said:

"Your blog at mikes money making mission .blogspot .com has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at xxxxxx

Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn't reviewed and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewed and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed."

This made me none too happy!

However they went on to write:

"We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologise for this error." (My bold print)

So if you did arrive here over the last few days. and saw a warning notice, this is the reason.

Google, it seems, is trying to stop various forms of Spandexing which includes such things as Keyword stuffing, Link spam, Mirror websites and similar methods. For more info on Blogger disabling blogs see Why is my blog disabled?

It's very frustrating when things like this happen but I guess it's all part and parcel of blogging. I think the Google robots identified this particular blog as possible spam because I have published lots of links recently.

Anyway, such is life.

Good luck,
Mike.

Real Spam available here!

Money Making In The Sunshine

2009-03-25T14:36:00.004Z

I've returned from my holiday in Madeira and am now wondering if I should go away more often! Not being about seemed to have made no difference to the traffic on my blogs. In fact I had some excellent days on my celeb blogs.

If you read the 'blogging rules', which many experts spout, it's necessary to write posts daily, keep up to date and so on and so on. No doubt this is good advice but there is no need to beat ourselves up if we miss a few days (or even a fortnight) because things will carry on okay without us.

Amongst the checks/cheques I had waiting on my return were two from ClickBank. There's a fair amount of criticism about this affiliate program, I've had a few moans myself, but once you qualify for payments things seem to work like clockwork - and fortnightly payments are very acceptable.

It's strange as, on the 18th of February, I wrote a post saying I hadn't had any recent ClickBank orders and then, like the London buses, you wait for ages and several arrive at once. Another reason to go on holiday more often!

Oh yes, nearly forgot to mention, got my first payment from Squidoo. Okay it was only $14.06 but it shows that they payout as specified. This is payment direct from them, via PayPal, and doesn't include spin offs from affiliate programs I have promoted on various Squidoo lenses.

I can now see that it is possible to make some decent money with Squidoo if you have the stamina to keep going at for at least six or seven months. It's something that could gradually build to something worthwhile.

In the meantime I'm planing my next holiday. The idea of making money in the sunshine while not doing anything is very appealing!

Good luck,
Mike.

Ad: myLot. Make extra money joining in and starting discussions.

Money Making While In Madeira

2009-03-08T14:49:00.007Z

I'm having a break / holiday / vacation for about 15 days. I'm off to Funchal in Madeira, somewhere I haven't been before. As per usual when my wife and I go away I always promise her no computers, no telephones, no business. This way we unwind properly and usually feel raring to go again once we return - that's the theory anyway.

In the meantime here is a selection of money making affiliate programs that have made me money, so I can confirm that they payout okay. This is only a small selection - in alphabetical order.

AdSense
Some bloggers grumble about AdSense but for me it's always been a winner.
I receive payments (monthly) direct into my bank account.

Amazon UK / Amazon USA
We all know Amazon. I promote both UK and USA Amazon mainly because most of my visitors arrive from those two countries. It's necessary though to sign up for both.
I have received payments (monthly) paid direct into my bank account.

ClickBank
1000's of products but have to admit that some of them are a bit 'dodgy'. It's a matter of finding the good ones to promote.
I have received payments (fortnightly) by check/cheque.

Commission Junction
Lots of money makers under one 'umbrella'. Simply choose the affiliate programs you want to promote. Lots of top names available.
I have received payments paid direct into my bank account.

DIY Dating
They offer you a free website, choose your own name, and use their database of millions of profiles.
I have recieved payments by check/cheque.

FriendFinder
Over 20 websites to promote and it's something that can be promoted anywhere in the world to anywhere in the world.
I receive payments (monthly) by check/Cheque.

myLot
It's not too easy to make worthwhile money from the website unless you refer others. I joined this initially as a way to promote by blogs. Members can list their blogs.
I have received payments by PayPal.

YouGov
A genuine surveys company plus if you introduce other people you can make extra commission.
I have received payments by check/cheque.

Voxant
Videos for your blog - news, sport, entertainment, odd etc.
I receive payments (monthly) by PayPal.

I'll see you all again in just over two weeks.

Good luck,
Mike.

P.S. I've still been working away trying to make money with Squidoo. Here are a few of my lenses, the most visited being World War 2 Photos followed by Awful Jokes / Making Money With Free Blogs / Top Ten Tips To Live Longer / Funny Humorous Letters / How To Give A Talk, Presentation Or Speech / Everything Perry / Elvis Presley The Early Years 1935-1960. And if you want your own free Squidoo space click here.

Make Money With Ghostwriting

2009-03-05T15:26:00.005Z

Have you ever thought about making money by Ghostwriting? No, not ghost stories but writing for other bloggers or absolutely anyone else.

I came across another Mike, this time Mike Moore, on Squidoo who has written some excellent information about this subject on his lens Tips for Breaking into the Ghostwriting Industry.

It's certainly something worth reading if you enjoy writing. Mike writes: "For ten years I drove a truck for a living. Slowly, I learned the ins and outs of the ghostwriting industry, and now I would like to share some of those tips with you." And that's exactly what he does.

With being a ghostwriter you can set your own rates of pay $15, $30 or whatever per 500 word article. Or maybe your customer will want an ebook or something more elaborate, the scope is enormous. You could start your ghostwriting money making part time and Mike gives hints on how to do this.

If you like writing this could be an avenue worth finding out more about - go take a look at his Squidoo lens.

Mike has also started a blog: Mike's Writing Nook.

Good luck,
Mike.

Other reading:
Lots Of Ways On How To Make Money

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Increased Yahoo Referrals Anyone?

2009-03-03T15:38:00.007Z

I have noticed that I have been getting more Yahoo search engine referrals recently especially on my Celebrity Insider blog.

I've also heard from some Squidoo lensmasters who say they are now getting more referrals from Yahoo than from Google. Though this hasn't happened to me, Google still rules supreme.

All of this has come about because Yahoo have been fiddling with their algorithms. They reported the following a few days back:

"We’ve rolled out some changes to our index with fresh web data and updates to our crawling, indexing, and ranking algorithms over the last few days. We have had two updates since last November: one in December, 2008, and another in late January this year. We expect the update will be completed very soon. Throughout this process you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages in the index."

What we don't know, of course, is what the actual changes were and therefore it's difficult to know how we can take advantage of this.

It would be interesting though to know if anyone else has been getting increased Yahoo referrals. No doubt someone will crack the algorithm - or at least pretend/say they have.

Good luck with the referrals,
Mike.

How To Give A Talk, Presentation Or Speech: Tips and a formula for giving a speech or presentation.

February Top Money Making Posts And Stats

2009-03-01T14:39:00.004Z

That's another month gone - slow down please!

Here's a list of the Top Ten Most Visited Blogs on Mike's Money Making Mission for February. I say this most months but it still surprises me what this list brings up. A strange mixed lot of posts going back to 2007. The top one shows that it isn't necessarily the best written that gets the most readers - far from it in this instance.

What the list does show is how valuable a blog's back catalogue of posts is worth traffic wise.

Top Ten Most Read Posts For February 2009

1. Mar 2007. How To Make Money With Chain Letters
2. Dec 2008. 40 Ways To Get More Blog Traffic
3. May 2008. How To get 90% Discounts On Amazon
4. Jan 2009. Over 50 Social Networking Websites
5. Dec 2008. How To Disguise Your URL
6. Mar 2007. Making Money With Zlio
7. Jan 2008. Make Money With Paypal Credit Card merchant program
8. Mar 2007. Money Making With Free Blogs Part 1
9. Feb 2008. 40 Blog Directories Offering Free Listings
10 Nov 2007 Money Making With DIY Dating

As for my Squidoo Trial it's going okay. Still too soon to say if it will make any decent money - I'm thinking middle to long term. Here's my three lenses which were most visited. Again I don't necessarily think these are my best lenses. What I have found out with Squidoo is that it's important to use the right keywords.

Mike's Top Three Most Visited Squidoo Lenses For February

1. World War 2 Photos
2. Making Money With Free Blogs
3. Awful Jokes

And moving on to my celebrity blogs all I can say is that 'sex sells' -well it does in the celebrity world.

Mike's Top Three Most Visited Celebrity Blogs For February

1. CelebTease.com - over 18's only.
2. Celebrity Insider
3. Helen Flanagan

As for my blog income, I don't give this any more for various reasons, but these were my three top money makers.

Mike's Top Three Money Makers For February

1. FriendFinderGroup
2. Google AdSense
3. Voxant

Lets now see what we can do with March - fingers crossed.

Good luck,
Mike.

Latest three Squidoo lens: Top Ten Tips To Live Longer / How To Give A Talk, Presentation Or Speech / Funny Humorous Letters

How I Do Simple Search Engine Optimization - SEO

2009-02-26T15:09:00.008Z

The subject of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is always being bandied about. Personally I like to follow the KISS principle - Keep It Simple Stupid.

I read some stuff on the subject and still get a bit bewildered by some of the tech guys, a lot of whom seem more out to impress us with their vast knowledge rather than write something that the average blogger understands.

Anyway, most of my SEO is simple. I concentrate on keywords.

I have a think about what my blog (or post) is about (i.e. the main subject matter or niche) and then use a Keyword Research Tool to create a list of keywords.

Two Keyword Research Tools are: WordTracker and SEO Tool.

I then use these words on my blog in places such as: blog post titles, page titles, headines and any other important places like the tags or labels at the end of a post. I also use a few of these keywords throughout the post contents. And that's it!

I also like to use phrases such as 'How To' and 'Tips' when I can - these seem to appeal both to the search engines and also to the people searching.

The posts should flow naturally and shouldn't be overstuffed with lists of keywords. And that's definitely it!

See also MMMM posts:
The Long Tail Way To Make Money - about using 'long tail' keywords.
Free SEO Keyword Tool - Guess what? Its about an SEO Keyword Tool!

Good luck,
Mike.

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What Role Do You Play When You Blog?

2009-02-25T15:33:00.006Z

Something today not to be taken too seriously. So what do you reckon your persona is when you blog? What is the role you are playing?

No idea? Well the website Typealyzer reckons they can answer those sort of questions.

How? By simply entering the URL of your blog and then clicking the Typealyze button. And up will pop the type of person you are.

For example I entered the URL for one of my Squidoo lenses World War 2 Photos and this is the sort of person they claim I am:

"The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

They enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters."

But when I entered another lens Awful Jokes I'd changed!

"The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time."

It seems that we change personalities with different blogs.

So there you go. As I said not to be taken too seriously. Is this of any use? Typealyzer reckons so, but I guess they would, see their FAQ. English isn't their first language so there are a few spelling and grammatical errors.

Click here to discover your blogging personality

Good luck,
Mike.

Great Expectations Make Money

2009-02-24T15:22:00.006Z

Here's a strange thing, well I think it is, my wife is always finding money. Mostly in the street and she's now got over 160 coins in her 'lucky pot' to prove it.

This amazes me as I'm usually with her when she finds the money, but I never see it. We walk for about three miles every day to keep fit and it's proving profitable!

This week she started finding paper money. A £20 banknote (bill) floated down to her feet. Note not my feet! There was nobody else about, so goodness knows where it had come from.

What has this got to do with blogging?

I suppose it's a lesson in expectation. We get what we expect.

A couple of weeks ago my wife found a coin two days running so she immediately said that she would now find a third as 'things come in threes.' Sure enough the next day she found yet another coin. She expected to do so - and she did.

This sounds perhaps a little like New Age and away with the fairies stuff but, if you think about it, there is something in it.

If we expect nothing, we get nothing. If we don't expect lots of visitors and money making success with our blogs then we shouldn't be too disappointed when we are proved right.

It's odd but once we decide what it is that we actually expect then we can usually get it. It's therefore worth jotting down our expectations so that our minds can get to work.

This doesn't mean we can sit on our backsides and do nothing but, because we are expecting certain good things to happen, we tend to become enthused and motivated. We start looking for ways to achieve our expectations.

So expect the best and get it. Great expectations can bring great things.

Good luck,
Mike.

YouGov: Complete surveys and polls for payment - genuine company. See Money Making With Surveys for more info.

Money Making With Surveys

2009-02-22T14:45:00.007Z

I did something yesterday that I haven't done for a while, I completed a survey for YouGov all about the financial position of the UK at the present time. It was actually quite interesting as it's something that I have opinions about.

However, the thing that pleased me most, about logging on to YouGov, was to see that I have £44.00 in credit, that's about US $65.00.

This isn't a massive amount of money by any means but it is money for which I've done virtually nothing to earn myself. It's that theme I often go on about: introducing others to money making programs which you consider worthwhile. See also How To Make Money With Your Feet Up On The Desk.

With YouGov, for example, if you refer others to join their panel this is what you get (to quote their words):

"For each new member that signs up via your personalised registration link below, you will receive equivalent amounts in survey credit for each survey they complete during their first three months of membership."

If you think about it, that's quite a good deal. I'll let you work out different scenarios.

There are a lot of scam survey websites about but YouGov is genuine and the results of their polls and surveys are often seen in newspapers and on television.

Now YouGov won't make you rich, far from it, but I look on all money made as being good money so I welcome the odd £50 or $100. Money accumulates.

I'm lucky in that I can allow the money I make this year, from blogging and the Internet, to earn interest in my savings accounts. What I do is allow this to build up for the complete year and then I spend it, invest it or whatever next year. At the moment I'm using my blogging income, from 2008, for home improvements, holidays and so on.

By doing this the more I earn this year, the more 'fun' I can have next year - in a spending or investing sense that is.

Going back to YouGov they are active in the UK, USA, Austria, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Middle East, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden. For more info follow this link and, if not in the UK, see the box at right of the page where you can select the country where you live.

Good luck with your referrals.
Mike.

No Orders To Making money

2009-02-18T14:55:00.007Z

It's always good to talk about blogging when things are going well but sometimes it isn't always a smooth ride.

In the course of making money I try various programs and affiliate ventures. Some are going well but I thought, for a change, I'd mention two that I haven't done very well with this year: ClickBank and Amazon.

First ClickBank. Over the last 30 days I've had 908 clicks to products and this has made me absolutely nothing. Even at a 0.5% response this should have given me 4 orders.

And it's not much better with Amazon for either the UK or USA sites. All I've managed in the last month is one order which has made me $1!

To my mind, in some respects, ClickBank and Amazon are similar. You'll probably say, "No way. Amazon has quality products whereas ClickBank has a lot of old tat."

I'd agree with this but I mean in the way they need to be promoted. Neither work well by slapping a banner on a blog and crossing your fingers. Yes you may be lucky but generally this doesn't work that well.

Instead they need the personal touch. The products need to be included in blog posts as recommendations or reviews. So, if you do it right, the reader thinks, "That looks worth investigating, especially as Mr. or Ms. Blogger has written about it."

In other words you use your reputation to sell the product. And this is what I've personally failed to do this year with either Amazon or ClickBank.

For both it takes some pro-active effort: a review, perhaps a special Squidoo lens devoted to a range of products and so on. A little effort pays. It has for me in the past but, as I've seen this year, hoping that things will take care of themselves isn't a good strategy.

Now, about being successful with blogging, have you seen all of the excellent information on Blogging Good Blogs? Okay, okay it's an Amazon aStore I set up ages and ages ago ... but you have to do what you preach ... especially if you want to make money ...

Good luck,
Mike

Other Reading:
How To Get Up To 90% Discounts On Amazon

A People Search For Lots Of Info

2009-02-16T15:43:00.004Z

I guess today's post is a bit off the normal subject but it may be useful.

I'm sure we all Google someone or a name, perhaps for info for blog posts. I know I do for my celeb blogs but here's a new(ish) search engine dedicated to 'people search': 123people.

So that it can limit the findings searches can be done for UK, USA, Austria, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland or the World.

I've found the site useful but better for some names than others. When it does hone in on a name it can turn up all sorts of stuff: Photos, email addresses, Videos, Weblinks, Social Network Profiles, Phone Numbers, Blogs, Documents, News, IM's and so on.

In some ways it might be considered a bit too intrusive but 123people isn't doing anything illegal. It's simply doing a thorough Internet fast search that would normally take a while to get the same results.

Everything is for free. 123people describe their service thus:

"123people is a real time people search tool that looks into nearly every corner of the Web. Using our proprietary search algorithm, you can find comprehensive and centralized people related information consisting of images, videos, phone numbers, email addresses, social networking and Wikipedia profiles and much more."

They have a questions and answers page here for users.

Depending on the niche of your blog 123people might prove useful.

Good luck,
Mike.

Top Ten Tips To Live Longer, Some people have lived for over 150 years so why can't we all? Tips suggested for a longer life.

Test Out Your Link Bait Or Niche Before Publishing

2009-02-13T16:09:00.006Z

If you have a written a special article or post, something that you think will attract some link bait, is it actually best to use this as a blog post or should you perhaps create another website for your masterpiece?

A bit of a long first sentence but I've been thinking about this for a couple of reasons.

Firstly I published some World War 2 Photos of London bomb damage as a Squidoo lens. As you may remember I'm doing a money making test on Squidoo.

The thing is, I had published these very same photos, for which I have the copyright, as a blog post on one of my now defunct blogs. On the blog they didn't get many hits and got lost amongst the other posts.

The same photos, however, on the Squidoo lens have had 55 different keyword combinations used for referrals from the Google search engine over the last seven days.

So the photos, with virtually the same text, worked much better on Squidoo than on a post on a run of the mill blog.

I was also reading another blog post Link Bait Launch Cycle where the writer suggested:

"Don't Publish Your Article/Idea As A Blog Post - blog posts are perceived as low value.

Create a dedicated branded site, or dedicated branded page for your product, service or idea. By all means create a blog post to link to your branded site or page, but try to make the presentation of your idea different to what you normally do."

So those two things got me thinking that it might be a good idea to test out an article or particular niche on a Squidoo lens. If it proves reasonably successful the idea could then be transferred to a proper website with it's own .com address. (You can get a .com for about $10).

As you know I like to experiment and test things, it's really the only way to learn for yourself, so I may well now test out ideas on Squidoo lenses.

I would add though, that some of my other Squidoo lenses aren't getting any referrals from search engines - again this illustrates the benefit of testing things out.

We shall see but, as I often say, food for thought.

Good luck,
Mike.

WidgetBucks: Result Of Money Making Test

2009-02-11T17:38:00.004Z

On the 4th of February I wrote that I was doing another money making test on WidgetBucks - see my post WidgetBucks Money Making Test Re-Visited.

I've reached a quick conclusion and have removed the WidgetBucks widget from my testing blog.

Why?

Two reasons:

(1) Their widget was holding up the loading of the blog I was testing it on. As we know, if a blog or website takes a while to load people go elsewhere and don't hang on for more than about 8 seconds. Frankly I want every visitor I can get. As I keep repeating over and over like a parrot: Traffic = Money. And I'm in blogging to make money.

(2) The second reason: Because of the stats on the right: 4982 page impressions = income 42 cents! Not really much more need be said about that, but I will!

WidgetBucks said on their blog: 'publishers (are) earning more with YieldSense without lifting a finger.' That's why I did a second money making test.

Well this isn't what I've found in fact it's the opposite!

If you compare this test with the big test I carried out last year, see my post How Much Should You Earn For 1 Million Page Impressions, you'll see that this time the rate has gone down from roughly 11 cents per 1000 to 8 cents per 1000.

So bye bye WidgetBucks. As I said back in November: All that glitters is not gold.

Good luck,
Mike.

Persevere To Make Money With Blogging

2009-02-09T11:31:00.005Z

Sometimes people seem to have the wrong idea about making money with blogs. It's not one of those get rich overnight schemes - though some promoters try to infer that it is for their own benefit i.e. they make money by saying this.

The fact is that, in most instances, it takes a while to build up a decent income from blogging.

A Squidoo lens publisher summed this up nicely when she left a comment on one of my Squidoo lenses Making Money With Free Blogs.

Tracey_M wrote:

"...after 3 years of struggling to make money online I have in January made my first $800 passive income, which I hope to compound every month to the end of the year. I work full-time at it too and my word of advice to anybody trying to make money online is to be patient and persevere and it will happen! I have never felt so positive about my future." My underlining.

Now I'm not saying that it takes three years to build an income, it can genuinely be done in a lot less time than this. The fact is, however, that many people take up blogging, or creating something like Squidoo lenses, and then give up after a couple of months. Traffic to blogs doesn't just happen, it has to be worked at.

To be successful with blogging there are possibly three essentials:

(1) Write stuff that people want to read.
(2) Publish as regularly as you possibly can - an ideal would be daily.
(3) Do some work every day to get more traffic. Promote your blog regularly in other words.

These are generalisations but they work. There is, of course, lots more besides these, such as monetising your blog properly, having a reader friendly layout, using keywords, SEO and so on and so on. But most of all it's about perseverance and building your blogging business on a sound foundation.

Good luck,
Mike.

Further reading:
40 Free Ways To Get More Blog Traffic
Long Tail Way To make Money

Ad: Free money making space on the Internet with Squidoo. Examples of Squidoo lenses: Making Money With Free Blogs / Images And Photos For More Traffic / Money Making With Penfriends And Friends / The World Of Ponzi Schemes / World War 2 Photos / Awful Jokes / Elvis Presley The Early Years

Update Report On Adult Money Making Blog

2009-02-06T15:15:00.005Z

Now I'm not suggesting you do the same for one minute, each to their own. However, as regular readers know, I have been experimenting with an adult style celebrity blog and also bought a .com address for this: CelebTease.com.

Someone else actually does most of the work for me and the whole experiment has proved successful in making money.

As you can see from the chart below last month there were over 110,000 unique visitors and this went up to a massive 279864 for January when reloads were included. As is often said: sex sells - and therefore makes money.

CelebTease: Monthly Unique Visitors March 2008 to January 2009
Now this isn't really my thing but as I keep saying: often to make money you have to give people what they want.

Please don't go to the CelebTease if you think this may offend, this isn't what I want to do. All I'm trying to illustrate is that the adult market is very profitable even in a recession.

CelebTease: Blue=Uniques, Yellow=Reloads, Pink=Uniques+Reloads
The problem, if you can call it such, for me now is that I can't really give up the blog as it produces a reasonable income for me. I guess I could perhaps sell up and may eventually do this - 110,000+ vistors must have a saleable value.

That's my update on my money making adult niche test. There is lots of money to be made in this sector if so inclined.

Good luck,
Mike.

Adult niche affiliate programs: Sexy Ads / AdultFriendFinder / Sex Toys / Wegcash / Penthouse / Met Art - all strictly over 18's only.

WidgetBucks Money Making Test Re-Visited

2009-02-04T15:36:00.004Z

As regular readers know I gave up the ghost with WidgetBucks in November of last year, see my post How Much Should You Earn for 1 Million Page Impressions as for the reasons.

Basically I didn't think it was worth continuing because of the low returns and the slowness of their widgets in loading - which also slowed down the blog from loading as well.

Always a glutton for punishment I thought I would give them another go for two reasons:

(1) They have introduced something called YieldSense which claims that 'publishers (are) earning more with YieldSense without lifting a finger.' Mind you with the lousy returns I was getting previously this shouldn't be very difficult! They give an example of one publisher where things have improved dramatically but, of course, one swallow doesn't make a summer. Always love a good cliche.

(2) The second reason is that they 'owe' me $35.47 and, as they only payout over $50, I thought I should be able to push the amount through the payment barrier. Even a small amount like this is better in my bank than theirs.

Okay so that's the reasons for testing WidgetBucks again. At the moment the widget is only on my Celebrity Insider blog.

It's very, very early days but so far the widget appears to be loading in a reasonable time frame. But what's more important will be what money I make. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating - excellent, another cliche.

I'll report back on the pudding situation in due course.

Good luck,
Mike.

Ad: Squidoo for your free space on the Internet. Examples of Squidoo pages: Making Money With Free Blogs / Photos And Images For More Traffic / World War 2 Photos / Awful Jokes / Elvis Presley The Early Years / Everything Perry

Make Money With PayPal Credit Card Merchant Program

2009-01-29T15:44:00.009Z

PayPal For Business
Accept credit cards in just minutes
A little ad like the one above, or a banner ad with the same theme, could make you money - up to £750 in the UK and a roughly equivalent amount in the USA. Not to be sniffed at!

I'm sure most of us have got PayPal accounts and, if we have, why not run ads for their Merchant Referral Bonus Programme promoting the fact that small businesses, and indeed large ones, can accept credit cards via PayPal.

If any new merchants sign up then you'll get some commission. As PayPal put it:

Each time a new merchant signs up for a PayPal Business or Premier account via the link or banner that you provide, you'll be eligible for a Merchant Referral Bonus. Your referral bonus is tied to the amount the merchant receives via PayPal's Website Payment Tools or Send Money. You'll immediately start earning 0.5% of the new merchant's revenue ...

Realistically with a small blog it's unlikely that you'll sign up dozens of new merchants but even a few could produce a decent revenue stream depending on their volume of business. There must be lots of new and small businesses looking for a way to accept credit cards - it's an option that anyone selling must have.

To help promote the Merchant Referral Bonus Programme there are links, a banner ad and also the following suggested email:

"When you signup for PayPal, you can start accepting credit card payments instantly. As the world's number one online payment service, PayPal is the fastest way to open your doors to over 150 million member accounts worldwide. Best of all, it's completely free to sign up! To sign up or learn more please click here."

If you are already a PayPal member simply click on the referrals link at the bottom of the page after you have signed in. This will lead you to the full info on how to promote the Merchant Referral Bonus Programme.

Good luck,
Mike.

Also: How To Get 90% Discounts On Amazon Products

Deep Thinking Links

2009-01-26T14:19:00.006Z

Most advice is that we need as many links to our blogs as possible, and preferably that these are of good quality. Even the major search engines themselves agree with this.

Most of the links that we go for, however, are usually to our home page address but what we should also be looking for are Deep Links.

Deep Links are to other posts or pages on our blogs or websites. These not only help with search engine optimisation but can help attract a different set of visitors to those who would normally head for the home page.

As an example the majority of links to a blog, like this one, are directed to Mike's Money Making Mission. But I can also link to individual posts such as How To get 90% Discounts On Amazon or 40 Ways To get More Free Blog Traffic and then attract visitors who may not normally be interested in my main niche of making money with free blogs.

Over the last seven days 25.72% of visitors to this blog arrived on the Amazon link mentioned in the previous paragraph and 7.2% to the Traffic link. That's 32.92% more visitors than I would have had by just using MMMM as a link.

These are still good quality referrals / hits / visitors / readers or what every you want to call them.

Also it's a good idea, but without taking it to extremes, to link various posts or pages together. I must admit I have been a bit lax with this on MMMM for quite a while.

If we write about a subject we can link to other places, where we have a similar topic, or even to something completely different that may just raise a readers curiosity. This helps to keep visitors for longer.

Back links, deep links and internal links are worth giving some thought.

Good luck,
Mike.

Similar subject: Promotional Posts Make More Money

Ad: Make Money With ClickBank. Join free, 1000's of products to promote covering a huge range of subjects. High commission rates, often 50% or more.

Currency Rates Give Me A 28% Rise

2009-01-24T14:57:00.003Z

The media is full of gloom and doom in the UK about the recession and, yes, things are serious for many people what with losing jobs and so on. But that old saying about 'an ill wind' is true.

With my blogging I've had a pay rise and it's all down to currency rates.

I'm with several USA affiliate programs where I receive US dollar checks (cheques) and the UK pound (I'm in the UK) is considerably down on the USA dollar recently, and this has worked in my favour.

I banked some USA checks last week for $603.13. Now in December last year I was getting less than $2 for £1 so, on the amount I paid in, I would have ended up with less than £300 after charges.

This time, however, I received £385.10 which is about a 28% increase. And that's why I say I've had a pay rise - and a big percentage one at that.

So bloggers, if you are in the UK like I am, it's a good time to be promoting USA affiliate programs.

Don't let cashing USA checks put you off. I save them up until I have three or four and sometimes many more and pay them into my bank in one go. This way the bank charges work out less - well they do at my bank.

Most USA checks clearly state how long they are valid for - anywhere between 90 and 180 days. The only thing you have to watch out for is the difference between UK and USA dates.

In the UK we put the day first and then the month. In the USA they put the month first and then the day. In the UK 1/7/2009 means the first of July but in the USA it's the 7th of January.

Several payments from the USA I get paid direct into my bank (with Google AdSense for example) and others to my PayPal account. This makes things easier but unfortunately not all affiliate programs are willing to do this.

It's no good us moaning about the recession we have to try and do our best to overcome the problems. Get stuck into promoting those USA affiliate programs while the currency rates are advantageous (to us Brits).

Good luck,
Mike.

Other Bloggers Make Me Money

2009-01-22T15:12:00.004Z

I know I've mentioned this previously but it's something I feel is important if you want to make money with blogs.

Below you will see that I have just received $428.73 from the FriendFinder Group. This wasn't for work I have done myself but for business done by other bloggers who I have introduced to their website.

I've also other money pending such as FrenchFriendFinder $61, KoreanFriendFinder $51, FilipinoFriend Finder $39.75 and so on. And this is just in the 'Friends' niche.

Now it's unlikely that I'd ever have made money with French, Korean and Filipino speaking countries but, with people I have referred in those countries, they make the money for me - which is great.

So the point I'm emphasising is:

With any affiliate program never overlook the potential to make money by introducing others to the scheme.

It won't cut your own earnings in any way and it's not really competition for yourself. There's plenty to go round. The world is a big place and we are still only scratching the Internet surface.

What it will give you is about 10% of what they earn (percentages vary from program to program) and with most schemes this is for life!

Now a reality check!
When you introduce others to an affiliate program the majority of them won't do any business at all. This is a fact, don't let others kid you differently.

So if you sign up a few people, and they do nothing, don't get downhearted. It's the way of any sales business. You simply keep going and introduce more people. Eventually you will find a few who will make you money.

It's worth the effort. Supposing you could only get one referral a month. If you think long term that's twelve people making you money in a year's time. But what if you were doing this with several different affiliate programs - I'll let you do the maths!

Hopefully you'll do better than this but, even if you don't, it's still extra money and all profit is good profit - especially when others are earning it for you.

Good luck,
Mike.

Ad: Free Adult Products Website. Big money possible with a free adult products website. Strictly over 18's only.

Over 50 Social Networking Websites

2009-01-19T14:29:00.007Z

Many bloggers believe that the way to build their business is with the help of some of the Social Networking websites. There are literally dozens to choose from and with most you can enter links, within your profile to your own blogs or websites.

The potential is therefore vast - if you have the time - to get yourself some good quality links plus build a network of contacts and/or friends which could well increase your blog traffic and/or affiliate profits.

Here is a list of over 50 Social Networking websites, there are many others besides. The list is in alphabetical order and they are all live at the time of posting. Most have quotes from the websites describing their service.

AmieStreet: Niche music.
"Amie Street is a place to discover, download and share music of every genre, from all over the world. Whether you come to Amie Street for two minutes or two hours, we'll help you find new music you'll love."

aNobii: Niche Books.
"List books, share thoughts."

athlinks: Niche endurance sports.
"Explore the world's largest endurance sports database"

Avatars United: Niche gaming.
"Unite with your in-game friends,old and new Share in-game photos and videos. Create groups and plan events."

badoo: Niche general.
"Badoo is the best place for finding all parties, clubs, and events and meeting the cool people to enjoy them with. Chat, flirt, simply socialize, share and have fun!"

Bebo: Niche general.
"Bebo is a social media network where friends share their lives and explore great entertainment."

BlackPlanetL Niche African Americans
"BlackPlanet.com is your place to meet and connect with African Americans around the country. Chat or post photos and videos to share your black experience."

BOOMj: Niche Baby Boomers and Generation Jones.
"The name BOOMj derives from the two primary audiences we serve: the Baby Boomers Generation and Generation Jones - both born during the big 20-year, post-World War II boom in births from the mid-1940's to mid-1960's."

BUZZNET: Niche Music Pop culture.
"Is a vibrant social media destination representing the next evolution of social networking.Buzznet distinguishes itself from traditional media sites and social networks that are focused on profile pages and communication tools by enabling Web users to program dynamic multimedia communities around the music and pop culture topics they are most passionate about."

cafemom: Niche Moms and Moms to be.
"CafeMom is a place for moms and moms-to-be to connect with one another."

care2: Niche activists, green issues.
"To help make the world a better place. The idea is simple: Make it easy for everyone to live a healthy, green lifestyle and impact the causes they care about most."

classmates: Niche previous class friends.
"The company's online social networking website enable users to locate and interact with acquaintances from high school, college, work and the military."

deviantART: Niche Art
"The largest art community in the world! Membership is FREE to share and sell your artwork, start your Art Collection and track your favorite artists."

DontStayIn: Niche Clubbing.

Elftown: Niche fantasy, science fiction.
"Elftown is the fantasy and science fiction community for artists, writers and hangarounds. It should be easy to find other people here and to discuss whatever you like."

eons: Niche babyboomers.
"Boom. Boom. Boom. Have you heard it? It’s the beat of our generation of boomers—many of us at Eons included—who are lovin’ life on the flip side. Eons.com is the online community for “BOOMers,” those of us born between 1946 and 1964 and beyond, who want to learn and do more to make the most of every stage of life."

Experience Project: Niche experiences.
"Experience Project is the place for authentic stories shared anonymously about every life experience -- including your own."

facebook: Niche general.
"Facebook helps you to keep in touch and share content with people in your life."

fixster: Niche movies.
" Flixster is a community for movie fans of all shapes and sizes. Whether you are a die-hard horror fan or lover of romantic comedies (or both), Flixster is a place where you can find others who share your taste and through them discover new movies that you will love."

FOTOLOG: Niche photos.
"Fotolog is the world's leading photo-blogging site, one of the world's largest social networking sites and a global cultural phenomenon."

Friends Reunited: Niche reuniting UK friends.
"It’s free to register and free to contact your friends from primary and secondary schools, universities, streets, armed forces and teams and clubs."

fubar: Niche general
"fubar is the Internet's only online bar and happy hour where the party goes on 24/7! fubar is for anyone 18 and older who is interested in meeting new people while connecting with old friends."

gaia online: Niche anime, games.
"Gaia Online is the leading online hangout on the web. More than seven million visitors come to Gaia every month to make friends, play games, watch movies in Gaia Cinemas, Gaia's virtual theaters, and participate in the world's most active online community."

gather: Niche general.
"gather has become the premier social network for the over-30 crowd. Share your thoughts, photos and videos."

Geni: Niche genealogy.
"Geni is a private place for your family to build your family tree,
preserve your history and share your lives."

gossip report: Niche anonymous gossip
"On GossipReport.com you can anonymously talk about anyone you want. Instead of creating a profile about yourself, you can create a profile about someone else."

Habbo: Niche virtual world.
"Habbo is a virtual world where you can meet and make friends."

hi5: Niche general.
"Find friends in your home town or other parts of the world. Show off your photos. Listen to music you like. Reconnect with old classmates. Build your own page and express what's important to you."

Horseland: Niche horses.
"Horseland is about horses and dogs, but it is also about meeting people. There is always something new when you play with thousands of people from all over the world."

imeem: Niche general
"imeem is a social network that enables users to discover, interact and express themselves with media, including music, video and photos, and form connections based on shared tastes and interests."

itsmy: Niche mobile content.
"The biggest free mobile content community. Send anything"

jammerdirect: Niche music, musicians.
"Jammer Direct is designed to be a local music & artistic resource for area musicians, artists, venues, and musical and art related vendors."

Kaioo: Niche general.
"As state approved charity organisation kaioo offers its members all features of a modern Social Community - and a lot more, because kaioo is the first real Social Community on the Internet"

last.fm: Niche music.
"Every track you play will tell your Last.fm profile something about what you like. It can connect you to other people who like what you like - and recommend songs from their music collections and yours too."

lifeknot: Niche general.
" First and foremost, lifeknot makes it easy for you to meet new people and make new friends that share your interests and passions in any activity imaginable."

LinkedIn: Niche business.
"Over 30 million business professionals use LinkedIn to exchange information, ideas and opportunities."

LiveJournal: Niche general.
"You can use LiveJournal in many ways: a private journal, a blog, a discussion forum or a social network."

MEETin: Niche Friends.
"Our Mission: To make new friends through a local social network without the pretense of establishing business connections."

Meetup: Niche Offline meetings.
"Meetup is the world's largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face."

MOG: Niche music.
"MOG, your personalized gateway for music discovery. With MOG, you can find, share, and talk about the music you’re into, from Abba to Zappa."

Muxlim: Niche Muslim.
"Our vision is to connect the world's Muslim communities to each other, and to the wider world, through shared online experiences."

MyChurch: Niche Christian.
"MyChurch.org is a free online tool for churches to extend their communities between Sundays."

myspace: Niche general.
"Create a community on MySpace and you can share photos, journals and interests with your growing network of mutual friends!"

nexopia: Niche general.

orkut: Niche general.
"Connect with friends and family using scraps and instant messaging. Discover new people through friends of friends and communities. Share your videos, pictures, and passions all in one place."

PassportStamp: Niche travel.
"PassportStamp, the site for tracking your overseas visits."

Plurk: Niche general.
"A really snazzy site that allows you to showcase the events that make up your life in deliciously digestible chunks."

ryze: Niche business.
"Ryze helps you expand your business network. Get a free networking-oriented homepage. Make quality business contacts."

spoke: Niche business.
"Where business people connect."

Student: Niche students.
"The social networking and student resource site just for students."

Tagged: Niche general.
"Tagged helps people keep in touch with their friends and make new ones. We provide a fun media experience featuring expressive custom profiles, fluid widget embedding, integrated video, chat, and much more."

Wasabi: Niche general.
"Wasabi aims to be the default site for joining and creating clubs and Communities for any hobby, sport, business, political or other interest or affiliation."

I think that will do for now! There are over 50 Social Networking Websites listed to be going on with.

Good luck,
Mike

Get your own free Squidoo pages and make some extra money. A few examples: Making Money With Free Blogs / The World of Ponzi Schemes / Everything Perry / Celebrities Photos and News / Hippo Photos For More Traffic / Elvis Presley The Early Years / Secret of Eternal Youth

Beware! Skimmers May Cost A Blog Money

2009-01-16T15:03:00.006Z

A lot of blog readers are skimmers and many of them are busy people - well aren't we all.

This means they often make snap decisions as to whether to read a post or move on. This is probably even more true if it's the first time the reader has arrived at your blog.

So what do they look at first? The headline or title of the post.

If the headline is something vague like 'Today's Entry' or 'An Interesting Article' they may not bother to delve any further and will move on to something else which sounds more interesting (even if it isn't in reality).

A post headline ideally should therefore be something which encapsulates what the blog is all about or something intriguing that makes them want to look further.

It's a fight to retain a reader's attention so big blocks of solid text can also be off putting. I know I glaze over when I see a big page of text with hardly any paragraphs.

Small paragraphs are best, again because they are easy to skim and seem less effort to read.

An image also helps to gain attention.

It's perfectly true that content is king - but only if people are willing to read the words of wisdom. Every little advantage to get people reading helps.

The longer we retain a reader the more chance there is that they may click on something that will make us money. And that's what the game us all about.

Good luck,
Mike.

Ad: On the celebrity trail - Celebrity Insider / Celeb Tease - over 18's only / Helen Flanagan / In Praise Of Konnie Huq

Genuine Quality Links Bring SE Referrals

2009-01-12T16:41:00.008Z

We are all jostling for good positions on the search engines. Consequently there are all sorts of stories and advice about as to what we should and shouldn't do to get good rankings. But a lot of questions are unanswered.

For instance: Does exchanging links harm our ranking? What about using keywords - can we use too many?

The difficulty is that there is no definite formula supplied by the various search engines themselves. A lot of what the 'experts' write is purely speculation and guesswork.

What we can do ourselves is read the advice that the search engines do give out.

For example if we look at Google's advice on what they call Link Schemes the following could be detrimental to our search engine ranking:

*Links intended to manipulate PageRank
*Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
*Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")
*Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

Their advice regarding links is simply:

"The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it."

If we move on to the Yahoo Search Content Quality Guidelines they don't like:

*Sites cross-linked excessively with other sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity (link schemes)
*Pages built primarily for the search engines or pages with excessive or irrelevant keywords

And as for Windows, and their Live.com search engine, within their Guidelines For Successful Indexing they list the following things to avoid:

*Attempting to increase a webpage's keyword density by add lots of irrelevant words.
*This includes stuffing ALT tags that users are unlikely to view.
*Using hidden text or links. Only use text and links that are visible to users.
*Using techniques, such as link farms, to artificially increase the number of links to your webpage.

It's all very complicated but the message clearly is that we need genuine links. It's not necessarily the number that's important but the quality of the links. Plus we need good content.

It's worth reading what the search engines are telling us and hopefully our search engine rankings won't be penalised.

It's so easy for SE referrals to take a dive and not really know what we've done wrong. It's a matter of trying to read what is being said by the search engine's 'between the lines.'

Good luck,
Mike

Ad: Photos Of Hippos May Bring More Blog Traffic!

Squidoo And Money Making Plus A Young Elvis

2009-01-10T16:10:00.007Z

I wrote a post just before Christmas titled Money Making Test: Squidoo Lenses and since then, as time allows, I have managed to create six lenses and have started to attract traffic to most of them.

I'm not going to do a proper update now on Squidoo as it's too early but a couple of things I have noticed that may be of interest.

Firstly there are Squidoo people who create lenses and then sell them. This is something I didn't realise. I'd heard about selling blogs, of course, but didn't imagine that a lens could be sold. They even have a section on their Forum called Lens Marketplace for this purpose.

I'm not too sure why anyone would actually want to buy a lens as they are so easy to create but there we go. Setting up and selling lenses might be a small money maker for anyone who has the time and inclination.

While on the subject of money making one person I came across, who goes by the name of CaptainSquid, has a chart on his blog - see here - where it looks as if he is earning about $3,750 per month from Squidoo with traffic of 6000 per seven day periods.

So perhaps there is money to be made with Squidoo!

Good luck,
Mike.

My Squidoo Lenses: Making Money With Free Blogs / Everything Perry / Warning About Ponzi Schemes / Celebrities Photos and News / Elvis Presley The Early Years

Making Good Money With Friendship & Contacts

2009-01-08T14:46:00.004Z

As regular readers will know I promote various websites, as an affiliate, for the FriendFinder Group and have received some quite healthy checks from them.

The group have over 30 different websites, all of which can be promoted from one affiliate sign up.

Their sites cover all tastes within the friends and contact market. Everything from Christian and Jewish friends to Asian, German, French, Italian and Worldwide to Senior friends.

The commission for affiliates, on such sites, is excellent and there are various options from which affiliates can choose.

For example on FriendFinder affiliates can choose between being paid for every free new member who signs up, or as a percentage of paid memberships - where you receive '100% of their initial and reorders', this ranges between $9.95 and $149.95. Or another option is to receive a flat one off payment for every new member you introduce.

Now besides these sort of friendship websites, that are suitable for most people, they also have adult contact websites and at the moment they are offering massive payouts on these.

As an example on Adult Friend Finder, Alt.com and Cams.com (over 18's only) they are offering $130 for every new paid membership.
The group is now actually owned by Penthouse and for new members to Penthouse (over 18's only) website they pay affiliates $75.

Now this is top dollar. It's obviously not suitable for every blog. I've promoted Adult Friend Finder recently, on my celebrity blogs, and have made some excellent money.

I won't kid you and say it's easy and that lots of people will sign up but when they do it's worthwhile money. I had a couple of people sign up in a week and that was $260 and I've made over $2000 from AdultFriendFinder.

On a personal level I have no interest in adult contacts myself but, as I keep saying, we have to give people what they want.

So with the Friend Finder Group you can cater for all interests, and just promote 'respectable' websites or you can also dabble in adult contacts if you choose. They have lots and lots of promotional material, banners, photos and so on. Plus January is a big time for people wanting to make new friends and/or romance.

For me this is a 5 Star affiliate program. One sign up and 30 sites to promote.

Good luck,
Mike.

$25 Bonus On Offer From Kontera

2009-01-06T14:44:00.004Z

My friend Matthew at Blog About Your Blog has tipped me off about an offer from Kontera whereby you could get a $25 bonus.

You probably already know about Kontera, or will at least have seen their ads on various blogs. They offer 'in-text' advertising. This is where they underline relevant words within your posts and up pops a relevant advert. Or as they describe it, with a posher description:
"Kontera analyzes your page dynamically and matches advertisers based on relevancy and expected revenues. The keyword is linked to the most relevant and highest paying text ad from among Kontera’s thousands of advertisers."
The $25 bonus offer is on offer to new members until the 15th of January 2009 only and you must sign up on this link only to qualify. (Note: I do not receive any commission or payment - this post is purely for your information).

To qualify for your $25 there are of course conditions. Well one really. Once you have generated $75 in earnings with Kontera, as I understand it, your balance will be increased to $100. It's that simple.

So if you've been thinking about giving Kontera a trial now is a good time to do so.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Using Forums For Traffic And Money Making

2009-01-04T14:21:00.006Z

Forums! It's always interesting to join in worthwhile discussions, especially if they are on similar lines to your blog niche.

And if you simply enjoy forums for what they are - great, but they can also be a valuable tool for producing extra traffic to your blogs - if they are used properly.

Using forums as a traffic generating tool, and therefore a money making tool as well, is different to using them purely for fun and entertainment.

For traffic it's all about when and how you start and join in discussions. But first you have to get your forum 'signature' in order.

Most forums will allow a link or links within a signature and these should be utilised to the maximum. Use however much space is available and in such a way as to spark an interest or desire to entice the reader to click on the link(s).

Think about the content of the signature carefully as this is often the main tool, on a forum, to generate extra traffic to your blog(s).

Okay, you may have a well designed signature but it's not much use if people don't see it. So you have to try and gain prominent positions on the various forum threads.

Let's look at starting a new thread yourself.

Why would readers want to click on a particular thread? Mainly because of the title. It may have the greatest subject matter but it's the title that will get them to read whatever it is you have written.

Make the title as interesting as possible, maybe hint at some useful knowledge or some question that can be answered and so on. You want people to look at your thread out of curiosity but ...

... the thread needs to be towards the top of the page that lists all of the threads in that particular category. Otherwise it will get lost and not noticed. But how do you keep it there?

By keep bumping it back up to the top.

With most forums, when a reply/comment is made to a thread, it automatically goes to the top of the list. You therefore need a theme that will get replies.

One way to do this is to ask questions or ask for help. Forum members are then more likely to write some sort of reply. Or maybe mention something controversial, funny, unusual or a tip or helpful hint.

If you can get regular comments or replies this will bump you up the page, but what if your thread is slipping rapidly downwards and will soon disappear?

This is the time to make a reply/comment on your own thread to bump it up the page yourself.

You can add some supplementary info, to what you originally wrote, or comment on what others have commented on - agree or disagree with them, thank them for their reply etc.

You should, in my opinion, only do your own comment on your own thread when absolutely necessary. Leave it until your thread looks like it's sinking fast. I also personally feel that own comments should only be made providing there are other 'unanswered' or 'unacknowledged' comments. But that's an ethical thing. I do know of bloggers who have several accounts on a forum for bumping purposes, but I'm not going to recommend this! Each to their own.

A few things not to do: Don't comment yourself on other people's threads, within the category where your thread is, unless they are above yours in the list.

If you do, your own thread will be pushed down the list, which isn't what you want.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't comment on other threads (and indeed you should) but choose to do so in a different category, so that it won't interfere with your own thread's position.

By all means comment yourself as much as possible (within other categories) as this will get you known and your 'name' seen. The more people see you about the more likely they are to comment on any threads you have created - and click on your links.

If you are commenting you should check that your profile page is up to date and has any links included (if allowed) to your blogs. Also use a recognisable avatar.

I think I've gone on long enough about forums but the main message is to think about how you use them. If it's for fun do anything you want but if it's for money making and/or traffic a little cunning and thought can generate more of, whatever it is that you want.

Good luck,
Mike.
The Big Money Maker For January

Promotional Posts To Make More Money

2009-01-03T15:12:00.006Z

Most of us advertise and promote our blogs in some way or other. Perhaps link exchange, directories, forums and so on. But it's also worth advertising individual posts as well.

Now and again I write a post specifically for this purpose. I then advertise/promote the post in the normal ways. And doing this pays off.

If I look at the five most read posts for Mike's Money Making Mission, for last month, three of these are, what I call, my 'promotional posts' and are ones I have advertised/promoted individually.

40 Free Ways To get More Blog Traffic
How To Get 90% Discounts On Amazon Products
Other Blogs - Get Listed Free

The idea of these posts is to attract more visitors and specifically those who might not otherwise visit this blog. This goes back to my idea that Regular New Blood Is Needed To Make Money.

I try to give these promotional posts a catchy title. Something which might get someone to click out of curiosity. It doesn't necessarily have to be something to do with making money with free blogs.

Of course I hope that some of the new visitors will come back again or maybe subscribe. Not everyone who visits will ... but you never know. At least I'm in with a chance and extra traffic = extra money making opportunities.

Good luck,
Mike.

Squidoo: Your own free space on the Internet for almost any subject you wish. Plus it could make you money as well. Click for full information.

Money Making With Amazon and ClickBank

2009-01-02T15:48:00.006Z

I was looking through some stats and, for a change, I didn't do too badly with Amazon over the December period.

I guess if you are ever going to make money with Amazon the run up to Christmas is the time to do it. I didn't particularly push them but on Amazon UK I had 15 sales from 568 clicks, which was a 2.64% response. I'm reasonably satisfied with this.

On Amazon USA though I didn't fare so well. 401 clicks gave me only 3 orders - a 0.75% response.

I'm not sure that Amazon will ever be a big, dramatic money maker unless you have definite products that link up exactly with the niche of your particular blog - something perhaps like selling cameras on a photography niche for example.

There are more profitable affiliate programs about but it has to be a case of trial and error to find the exact one or two for specific blogs.

Hope you've had a good start to the year. I had a small check ($87.16) from Clickbank today plus I had my monthly Google AdSense payment made into my bank. Not too bad for two days, lets hope the next 29 for January do as well, preferably better. It's what we receive that's important - until it's safely in our bank it's just theory!

Good luck,
Mike.
Clickbank Check

Back Scratching Doesn't Always Make Money

2008-12-31T16:27:00.005Z

As I mentioned on December 20th I am giving Squidoo a trial to see if it will:

(a) Make money in it's own right
(b) To see if it can generate traffic to my blogs
(c) To see if it can generate traffic to affiliate programs and thus make money

It's very early days to make any assumptions as yet. From what I have found out so far I think it will take at least three months to establish if Squidoo is a worthwhile project, as far as money making is concerned.

I've been attracting some traffic to my Squidoo lenses and this has come from:

(1) 47.2% - Referrals from my own blogs
(2) 22.8% - From Google search engine
(3) 18.6% - From within Squidoo
(4) 10.0% - Arrived direct, not sure how
(5) 01.4% - From Ask search engine

What is encouraging from the above is the percentage from Google. I have now created 5 Squidoo lenses but the search engine referrals are to only two of these. This shows that you have to follow the normal SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) rules and think about keywords and the like when setting up lenses.

A decent percentage has arrived from within the Squidoo community itself. In other words if you participate in commenting and ranking other lenses, and joining in on their forum, this will produce traffic in relation to the effort you put in but ...

... from a money making viewpoint is this traffic actually of real value? It's a little like everyone scratching each others backs. You scratch mine and I'll scratch yours.

Absolutely nothing wrong with this as it will boost your Squidoo rankings and standing within the community but ...

... if you are in Squidoo to make money then you won't make much from this particular direction - at least not as far as I can see.

I wrote a post back in April 2008 titled Regular New Blood Is Needed To Make Money. In this I wrote that, as valued as subscribers are, they don't really make you money. I feel it's the same when attracting Squidoo members to your lenses.

Of course it all depends why you are setting up Squidoo lenses or blogging. If it's just for fun then it's fantastic to get lots of stuff going on with other members and lots of back scratching.

If your mission is money making, however, I still stick to the principle that this comes from fresh blood via search engines and good links.

As with Dracula continuous new blood is required to keep your money making alive and well.

Anyway, just a few initial thoughts on Squidoo. The four most visited of my Squidoo lenses are:

The World Of Ponzi Schemes
Celebrities Photos and News
Everything Perry
Making Money With Free Blogs

Good luck and wishing ...

A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR
TO ALL
SUBSCRIBERS, READERS AND ADVERTISERS
Best wishes,
Mike

Can You Make Money With Google Groups?

2008-12-28T15:10:00.005Z

Way back in November 2006, when I was trying out different ways to get traffic, I started a Google Group called Free Blogs 4 Money.

I wrote at the time that I did this because, "A strange thing happened yesterday. Someone mentioned this blog in a Google Group and this brought me in 76 visitors."

Anyway, to cut a long story short, the Group wasn't really a success and after a couple of months I forgot all about it. I figured at the time that this was probably because I hadn't put in enough promotional effort.

Suddenly however, after all of this time, the Group has become active again and has 263 members. This may sound okay but most of the messages - there have been over 60 in the last 3 days - are rubbish, typical hyped up virtual spam.

It has got me thinking though as to whether there is any mileage in a proper run Google Group - for the purpose of money making and/or creating fresh traffic. The one I created is too overrun now to be worthwhile.

Has anyone had any success with a Google Group? Either running one or maybe just participating in a few? It would be interesting to know. Thanks.

Good luck,
Mike.

Squidoo Lenses: The World Of Ponzi Schemes / Making Money With Free Blogs / Everything Perry / Secret of Eternal Youth / Celebrities Photos and News

Seasonal Greetings!

2008-12-24T07:47:00.000Z

Other Peoples Goals Make Money

2008-12-23T15:55:00.004Z

Would you share your goals and desires with the Internet? If you would perhaps you may be interested in the website 43Things.

"Yes, but what use is all of this?" you may ask.

Well if you think about one of my pet themes, the one about how you should give people what they want (and not what you think they should or might want ... etc) then seeing what are popular goals and desires might just be useful.

For example the most Popular Goals on 43Things are:

1. Lose weight (32978 people)
2. stop procrastinating (24573 people)
3. write a book (22771 people)
4. Fall in love (22445 people)
5. Be happy (19819 people)
6. Get a tattoo (18184 people)
7. Go on a road trip with no predetermined destination (16992 people)
8. Drink more water (16949 people)
9. Get married (16474 people)
10.Travel the world (16414 people)

... and the most Popular Goals today are:

1. Drink more water
2. Fall in love
3. Lose weight
4. Write a book
5. Run a marathon
6. Learn Spanish
7. Be happy
8. Be more confident
9. Travel the world
10.Get a job

43Things could be useful for generating ideas about which type of products to promote, or maybe a niche for a blog, or an idea for an ebook. Though I'm not too sure about this obsession with drinking water!

Well I thought it was interesting anyway. And it's all done anonymously.

But why 43 Things? This is what they say:

People have known for years that making a list of goals is the best way to achieve them. But most of us never get around to making a list. 43 Things is great for that! Make a list on 43 Things and see what changes happen in your life. Best of all it’s a way of connecting with other enthusiasts interested in everything from watching a space shuttle launch to grow my own vegetables. So the next time someone asks you, "what do you do?" you can answer with confidence, "I am doing 43 things!".

Made your goals for next year? Are you going to drink more water for example!

Good luck.
Mike.

P.S. Just been looking at ClickBank and these are examples of some of the things to promote that could, perhaps, tie in with the Most Popular Goals:

Strip That Fat
Make Women Laugh And Fall In Love
Tattoo Me Now.
Attracting Wealth, Health, Happiness And Love
How To Find And Marry A Girl Like Me.
How To Get Dirt Cheap Airfare Tickets

Money Making Test: Squidoo Lenses

2008-12-20T16:27:00.008Z

With the New Year approaching I thought I needed something different to test, and I've decided on Squidoo. I dabbled with this a while back but got sidetracked onto something else without giving it a decent trial. This time, hopefully, I'll give it a proper money making test.

Why Pick Squidoo?
Firstly because it's similar, in many ways, to blogging. Secondly I've come across a few reports of people who have done quite well with the progamme. One in particular reckons to be making over $1000 a month - and that would be a worthwhile addition to my blog income.

What Is Squidoo?
If you haven't heard of it before it's all about creating single web pages on any subject you want, like a glorified big blog post. Squidoo call these pages lenses and you can have as many of them as you want.

On your page (lens) there are affiliate links, plus you can add aditional modules. All of these can make money. Squidoo distributes the income, from the 700,000+ lenses, in the following way: 5% goes to charity, they keep 45% and the rest goes to the lensmasters who build the pages.

There is also additonal money to be made from special eBay, Amazon, CafePress modules which can be added to pages if you choose.

Money can also be made by introducing new members to Squidoo, but there is more ...

Your lens or page can be used for virtually anything so it could be for promoting your own blog, products, business, affiliate programs etc. etc. If you can get traffic to your lenses they can be a useful promotional tool.

Okay here's three examples of Squidoo lenses I have just set up. They are far from perfect as yet, and need some editing, but it'll give you a general idea.

(1) Celebrities Photos and News: I'm using this mainly to try and get extra traffic to my celebrity blogs. As you will see I have been able to use RSS feeds so that a selection of my latest blog posts are on the lens.

(2) The World of Ponzi Schemes: I used this theme as Ponzi has been in the news recently following the massive fraud in the USA. The article I have published I wrote a year or so ago.

(3) Making Money With Free Blogs: The lens is to promote this blog. I've included an RSS feed but there is still a lot of work to do on the lens. I want to add a lot more information, but I'll do this gradually as and when I have time.

The people who make the decent money direct from Squidoo have hundreds of lenses and you could, of course, link these together so they produce traffic for each other. And don't forget the secondary income which can be made from your own affiliate programs and other stuff.

For example, you could use something like a ClickBank product, write an article about it and then use links to direct traffic to the main product sales page. There's lots of ways for which a lens could be used if you give it some thought

What Are My First Impressions?
It's very early days and I've only had about 145 hits on my lenses so far - hopefully this will grow considerably. What I have noticed is that, after just two days, I had referrals from Google, now that is a good sign.

There are lots of other ways to attract traffic to a lens. They have their own forum and I've also come across several websites especially for Squidoo lenses. I won't give details now as I can't say if they are worthwhile, as I haven't tried them myself. I'll get back to you on this.

On the Squidoo main page they write that you can, "Create your own page in 60 seconds.' This is slightly misleading. It's true that a page is ready for you pretty quickly but it'll take a while to enter the content, to grasp all of the things you can do with a lens and to get it looking as you would wish.

I'll leave Squidoo there for now and will do an update as soon as I can give a few more facts and figures as to how I have got on. I will add that it's not a get rich overnight progam, the lenses will take time to develop and quite a few will be needed to make decent money.

If you want to have a go as well here's the link: Squidoo. Let me know how you get on.

Good luck,
Mike.

Other reading: 40 Ways To get More Blog Traffic.

Make Money From New Year Resolutions

2008-12-18T15:21:00.006Z

It's nearly 2009. Okay, I guess most of us know this, but the beginning of a New Year is a good time for promoting products - the right products that is.

Despite being skint after the Christmas holiday most of us start a New Year with great enthusiasm.

It's a time for New Year resolutions and setting ourselves targets and objectives for the year ahead. It makes sense therefore to try and make money out of this this buzz of excitement.

It is now time to plan for January, if we haven't already done so. What is it that people will be thinking about? Probably things such as making money, getting a better body, losing weight, giving up cigarettes, making new friends, romance, adult contacts and so on and so on.

So if we can fill these sorts of needs, with the right products from affiliate programs and the like, we could see a rise in our blogging earnings. Looking through my own records January 2008 was one of my highest earning months and I aim to make 2009 even better.

Now is the time to do our homework and prepare for January with the right affiliate programs and promotions applicable to our particular blog niche.

There is only one opportunity each year to cash in on the hopes and dreams which a New Year brings. Don't miss out!

Good luck,
Mike.

Your Own Money Making Space on the Internet with Squidoo. Have one page or hundreds of pages and make money from them! Set up your first money making page in about 10 minutes. Example page (lens).

Beware of Dodgy Money Making Schemes

2008-12-16T12:23:00.008Z

There has been a lot of publicity regarding Ponzi schemes following the con by Bernard Madoff in the USA which run into billions of dollars. Even UK banks were sucked into the so called investment with HBOS losing £653 million, RBS £388 million and the Spanish bank Santander £2.03 billion. Unbelievable.

I wrote about the danger of Ponzi schemes way back in January 2007, see Warning: Beware Of Ponzi Schemes. The thing to remember is that 'if something looks too good to be true it probably is.'

This is why at the time I made a fuss about things such as Wealth ToolBox.

It's so easy to get sucked into these sort of schemes - as we've seen, incredibly, even banks are fooled. Be careful!

Good luck,
Mike.

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Lessons From State Of The Blogosphere

2008-12-15T15:04:00.005Z

There is an interesting but long report on Technorati called State of the Blogosphere. If you are interested in all sorts of blogging stats and information you'll most likely find it within the report.

For example, on the subject of How Bloggers Attract Visitors, these are supposedly the most popular methods, though I'm a little suspicious of the number one!

1. List your blog on Technorati - 83% of bloggers do this.
2. Comment on other blogs - 77%
3. List your blog on Google - 73%
4. Tag your blog posts - 68%
5. Link to other blogs and hope for reciprocity - 64%
6. Participate in a blogroll - 54%
7. Get listed in a blog directory - 53%
8. Produce content for other blogs - 24%
9. Pay for online advertising - 4%

Regarding number 4 on the above list, it's interesting that Technorati's Top 100 Bloggers use tags more than two times as much as the next 500 and 19 times more than the next 5000 blogs. This illustrates the importance of using tags for every posts, and using them wisely.

The Top 100 also update their blogs more frequently. The elite 100 have twice as many postings as the next 500 and 12 times more than the next 5000.

There are lessons to be learnt from this State of the Blogosphere Technorati report as it covers a wide aspect of blogging in general.

Regarding making money with blogs: for those with over 100,000 unique visitors per month, in the survey, they produced an average income of $75,000. This, however, was slightly skewed by some top bloggers who have over one million uniques each month and had a considerably higher income. A truer figure for this group of 100,000+ was a median annual income of $22,000.

You can see the full report here.

Good luck,
Mike.

See also: 40 Ways To Get More Blog Traffic

Ad: Get Ready to Make Money in the New Year with AdultFriendFinder and FriendFinder. Many people want to make new friends and contacts at the beginning of a New Year so big profits are possible. Join now, free, and be ready to promote 20+ websites.

Disguise Your URL

2008-12-13T15:46:00.005Z

There are often reasons why it may be helpful to disguise the URL of something you are promoting. Perhaps with an affiliate program such as ClickBank where it may put off readers if they see it is a ClickBank product. Or maybe where the URL is very long.

For whatever reason there are a several ways by which a URL can be disguised. Here are a couple of easy to use free examples.

Suppose you have the following URL, which you want to disguise:

(1) http://seeker76.maverick66.hop.clickbank.net
/?tid=MAVMONEY

You could disguise it, via WhyLong.com, and it would become:

(2) http://whylong.com/469

Or you could use this one from tinyurl.com:

(3) http://tinyurl.com/5enuu9

All three links will go to the same product.

Or as another example, what looks better and is easier to handle:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470246677?ie
=UTF8&tag=celebinsid-20&linkCode=as2&
camp=1789&creative=390957&
creativeASIN=0470246677

or

http://whylong.com/470

Both WhyLong.com and tinyurl.com are simple to use and don't require any form of registration.

Good luck,
Mike.

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40 Ways To Get More Blog Traffic

2008-12-08T16:48:00.014Z

The secret of making money with blogs is quite simple and can be summed up in one word: traffic.

If you get sufficient traffic / referrals / hits, or whatever you want to call them, you have the potential to make money.

But how do you get traffic? The first thing (1) is to do something every day, or at least on a regular basis, to try and get more traffic. To help with some ideas here is a list of 40 ways to get more traffic to your blog.

(2) MyBlogLog. Join MyBlogLog, list your blogs and if you wish put their widget on your blog - see example in right hand column of this blog.

(3) myLot. As well as making a little cash on this site it's also possible for members to list their blogs as well.

(4) Mister Linker This sort of thing is often frowned on by blogging purists but can bring in a few hits.

(5) Zimbio. I've had over 10,000 referrals from Zimbio. I use the 'automatic option' .

(6) Klik.Us. Doesn't work for everyone but my photo is on their first page and it brings me visitors.

(7) BuzzFeed. I've had over 25,000 referrals from this website.

(8) Mahalo. I've received about 1000 referrals.

(9) Wikipedia. I'm sure we've all used this website but it has also sent me over 5000 referrals. How? By being listed within the 'external links' on three or four celebrity pages - these are at the bottom of the respective pages. I'll leave you to fathom out how to do this!

(10) Technorati. Join and 'claim' your blogs.

(11) Images. Use images and photos in your posts. These can produce referrals from Google Images and also from other search engines. On one of my celebrity blogs this has brought me in over 350,000 referrals in one year.

(12) Wowzio. If you do use images in posts try a Wowzio widget - see example in right hand side column of this blog. I use these and get referrals.

(13) Videos. Publish videos on your blog. They don't have to be yours - use YouTube or whatever. These can bring referrals via Google Videos. On one of my celeb blogs this had brought me in 5000+ referrals.

(14) Keywords. Essential for getting referrals from search engines. Use them in titles and the body of posts but without overdoing it, as that would be considered spam.

(15) Long Tail Keywords.

(16) Emails. Use your blog address as a signature for every outgoing email.

(17) Forums - 1. Use your blog address in signatures on forums.

(18) Forums - 2. Participate on forums relative to your blog's niche.

(19) Subscriptions. Make it easy for readers to subscribe to your blog by using Feedburner or something similar. And make sure this is easily seen on your blog.

(20) Traffic Exchanges. Websites such as Blog Explosion, Blog Soldiers and Blog Mad will bring you traffic. As to the quality of the traffic, that's debatable - but they can make the stats look good! Important Warning: Do not use traffic exchanges if you have AdSense on your blog, they are not compatible.

(21) Exchange Links with blogs of a similar niche to your own.

(22) Google Groups. Create your own Google Group, relative to the theme of your blog, and/or participate in existing Groups.

(23) Profiles. List your blog on every profile of anything you join. If there is ever an opportunity - anywhere - then enter your URL. Might not bring in much traffic but you never know who might just click on your blog.

(24) Blog Directories. Get listed within as many Blog Directories as possible. This doesn't bring in a volume of traffic, but the links are useful in other ways - such as PR.

(25) Comment on other blogs. You mostly get at least the blogger returning your visit and sometimes many more as well.

(26) Freebies. Offer some sort of freebie on your blog, maybe an ezine, ebook or some sort of blogging tool.

(27) Competitions. Run a competition on your blog and do a form of Press Release to other relevant blogs telling them all about it.

(28) Link Love. Give some link love. This is odd but by listing other blogs within a post this creates good karma.

(29) Make a list of other bloggers interesting posts, as a post, on your blog.

(30) Squidoo. Create some Squidoo lenses and use them for links to your blog(s).

(31) Blog Carnivals - 1. Join a Blog Carnival and have your posts, with links, listed on other blogs.

(32) Blog Carnivals - 2. Host a Blog Carnival on your blog.

(33) Articles. Write articles and submit them to the various article directories. You are normally allowed to include your link in a footnote following the article.

(34) Link Bait. Write a 'special post', something that has taken a while to produce and is of value to a lot of people. With luck this will be linked to by other bloggers.

(35) Ping. Regularly ping your blogs. This tells search engines and other services that your blog has been updated. ping-o-matic will ping your blog to lots of services.

(36) Free Classified Ads. There are dozens of places where you can place free ads. A few examples: craigslists, Kijiji, ClassifiedAds, US FreeAds, WebLeeg, EPage etc. etc.

And these only start to scratch the surface. Once you start looking and thinking about attracting more traffic you'll find dozens of more ways. I haven't, for example, even mentioned social media networks like (37) Facebook or (38) Twitter - there's a list of the main social networking sites on (39) Wikipedia.

and (40) ask other blogs to link to your posts!

Link to this post
Good luck,
Mike.

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Money Making Top Ten Lists

2008-12-04T17:41:00.007Z

I see that Yahoo have published the Top Searches for 2008 for various categories.

I often generally look at such lists - though prefer things like Google Trends - to find out what the hot searches are. I base some of the posts on my Celebrity blogs on Trends. Here is Yahoo's 2008 Top Ten

Yahoo Top 10 Searches For 2008
1.
Britney Spears
2.
WWE
3.
Barack Obama
4.
Miley Cyrus
5.
RuneScape
6.
Jessica Alba
7.
Naruto
8.
Lindsay Lohan
9.
Angelina Jolie
10
American Idol
The above shows how celebrities dominate the Internet, whether we like this or not. And, as I often write, we have to give people/readers what they want as opposed to what we think they may or should want. Keeping up with trends means more traffic - and there is even more traffic (and money making potential) if we can anticipate something about to happen or hone in on something on the way up.

Google have a list of Top Ten Product Searches. Again this allows us to promote what people are searching for and want - as opposed to what we think they may want.

Google Top 10 Product Searches
1.
Nintendo Wii
2.
Wii Fit
3.
iPod touch
4.
Xbox 360
5.
Nintendo DS
6.
iPod Nano
7.
Uggs
8.
Nikon D90
9.
Zune
10.
Digital Picture Frame
There are lots of search categories about that can help us decide what we are going to write about or promote. Another example is the Google Top 10 Video Games & Toys.

Google Top 10 Video Games & Toys
1.
Bakugan
2.
Guitar Hero World Tour
3.
Webkinz
4.
Gears of War 2
5.
Call Of Duty World At War
6.
Rock Band 2
7.
Elmo Live
8.
Wii Music
9.
Fallout
10.
LittleBigPlanet
If we look there is a heap of information on the Internet to help us find out was is really popular. Most of the main search engine's publish such stuff. It all helps to increase a blog's money making potential.

Good luck,
Mike.

Dissatisfied Customers Will Make Us Money

2008-12-02T15:55:00.007Z

Here's some food for thought I read on CacheClosed.com. It's only a small part of an article but it describes how we, as money making bloggers, want dissatisfied customers! This is probably something different from the standard way most of us think.

We normally think that we want satisfied customers but if they are satisfied can we really motivate them to buy something? Here is a snippit from the article.

"Two things motivate all potential customers: a feeling of dissatisfaction and a desire for change. All good advertising creates a focused storyline with a singular message that stirs the emotional dissatisfaction in the audience and offers a solution that will initiate change.

Thank goodness people are insatiable for what's new and improved. We are a species motivated to constantly strive for more: more money, more power, more success, more stuff; and when we have more stuff, we want better stuff. We are in a constant state of desire. The advertisers job is to access that desire and push that motivational button so that the audience takes action.

The job of advertisers is to create dissatisfaction in its audience. If people are happy with how they look, they are not going to buy cosmetics or diet books; if people are happy with their old twenty-inch tube television they are not going to buy a sixty-inch LCD flat screen TV. If people are happy with who they are, where they are in life, and what they got, they just aren't customer-potential, that is, unless you make them unhappy.

Most cosmetic advertisements feature beautiful woman, igniting the promise that you too can look like a drop-dead glorious model if only you use their product. This approach is based on showing an ideal that the audience will undoubtedly be unable to stack-up against. The audience after seeing what they could look like, is no longer happy with what they do look like, and are now motivated to buy into the promise of change."

CacheClosed.com has some interesting stuff on their site - if you are dissatisfied with your lot that is! Go and read the full article.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Get £5 For Free When You Join CashBack Program

2008-11-30T15:56:00.008Z

We keep being told by the media that we are either heading for, or are in, a recesssion. It therefore makes sense to save money whenever possible. And if this also means that you can make money as well so much the better, and if they also give you £5 for free even better still!

Mirror Cashback is one such opportunity for UK residents.

With this particular cashback scheme there are all sorts of savings to be made on purchases, which most of us will probably make anyway. Here are just a few examples (current at today's date):

Avon cosmetics fashion etc 5% cashback, Burton menswear 2.5% cashback, Comet electrical equipment 1.5% cashback, Dell computers 1% cashback, Dixons electrical 2% cashback, Ernest Jones jewellery and watches 7% cashback, Figleaves lingerie 4.5% cashback, H Samuel jewellery 6.25% cashback, Greetings by PhotoBox greetings cards 20% cashback, Healthy Direct vitamins etc 10% cashback, House of Fraser 2.5% cashback, Knickerbox 5% cashback, Moss Bros 4% cashback, Nike iD 4.5% cashback, Pet Supermarket 3% cashback, Pizza Hut 3.75 cashback, The Body Shop 4% cashback, Thorntons 4% cashback - and many, many more including up to £45 cashback on insurance, £36 cashback on mobiles, £53 cashback on broadband.

To start getting cashback - it is completely free to join - click here.

Plus you can earn £5 for each friend or family member you refer. Full details are shown when you join.

The small percentages of cashback all add up, especially over the Christmas and New Year period.

Oh and did I mention that you get £5 when you join!

Must be worth a go. You will find the full information here.

Good luck,
Mike.

Google Blog Search Can Make Extra Money

2008-11-26T18:04:00.007Z

I've noticed that for some of my blogs I have been getting more referrals recently from Google Blog Search. To me more referrals means the possibility of making more money.

Google Blog Search is something I haven't really thought about too much before as I have relied mainly on normal Google searches to produce traffic.

From what I can see it pays to have the 'right' blog title and blog address to get a good supply of referrals from Google Blog Search. If you get this right you can get listed at the top of the page as a 'related blog'.

As an example see the screen shot below. I have a small blog about the UK television presenter Konnie Huq and my blog is listed at the top of the page as a 'related blog'.

I checked a few more of my blogs and I also get listed as a related blog for Celebrity Insider, Helen Flanagan, Celeb Tease and a few others as well. Being listed at the top of the page must obviously an advantage.

To get in this position I see it as being necessary to think about keywords that will most likely be used in a search and include these:

(1) within the blog title/name and
(2) within the URL.

This is something that many of us don't consider properly prior to setting up a new blog.

Having keywords in a blog name, URL as well as in post titles and the body of posts appears to pay dividends - both with the normal Google Searches and also with Google Blog Search.

A little thought and forward planning at the beginning of a blog's life can make a big difference.

Good luck,
Mike.

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Other Blogs Clean Up

2008-11-25T12:34:00.004Z

I've been tidying up my 'Other Blogs' list for Mike's Money Making Mission - the link for this is always in the header.

I went through all of the blogs listed, to make sure they are reasonably current. Some have therefore been deleted.

If I have removed any in error just let me know and I will be pleased to replace them.

I don't judge the blogs listed, some are good and others perhaps not so. All I ask is that they are decent, won't offend anyone and are updated recently.

Just leave me a comment either here or on the Other Blogs page if you wish your blog to be added. Blogs of any category, other than adult, accepted.

Good luck,
Mike.