Monday, November 12th, 2007
Two new tools got to my attention this last week, from comments made by their creators in my posts, both with great potential.
Auto Social is a WordPress plugin that automatically saves every post you write to del.icio.us. While del.icio.us does have nofollow on the tags, the creator says that he will add more sites in time, so I’ll definitely keep an eye on this plugin. It’s true that Yahoo shows nofollow links, but they don’t carry any weight with them, so the plugin doesn’t help much right now. Really excited about the possibilities though.
GTrends Made Easy is a tool that automates a bit the work you do with the GTrends tool, that I’ve talked about here. It seems quite a bit done to complement WordZe and the initial message asking for an WordZe API gets annoying after a while, but the tool is great anyway. It’s free (though you do have to give your email message) and it allows you to paste a list of keywords and find out what their search volume is on GTrends without clicking that small icon for each one. A bit slow right now and it has no export functions for the results, but you can still paste them in an excel file.
Again, it’s got great potential and there are plenty more features that can be added to make it truly valuable and easy to use. I’d have no problem paying $50 for it instead of getting it for free if it had more features.
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Monday, November 12th, 2007
The following is a paid review, that reflects my own opinion on the service, not influenced in any way.
Online Paid Surveys is a directory of sorts for sites that offer free paid surveys, allowing users to rate each one on quality, frequency of surveys, support and payment. According to them, these surveys pay anywhere from $2 to $50 or they give you gift certificates or enter you into sweepstakes.
If they got a member area then it’s pretty well hidden, as I couldn’t find it. While I can’t really say anything about whether online paid surveys really do pay, I can tell you that the site being reviewed seems to live off affiliate links, and it seems to be pretty well done. They list all the information that you need to decide, you click on the affiliate link and sign-up with each company, and they get their share of the surveys you do.
Seeing as it acts just like a central hub for different paid survey companies, you don’t get the option of a central payment. If you subscribe to 10 survey sites, you need to reach the minimum payment for each of them and you get 10 checks.
Taking as an example, the top rated GlobalTestMarket from the Online Paid Surveys site, the review talks about being able to earn $50 per month from paid reviews. It doesn’t really seem a good alternative to making money with your own sites. It might be a good way to earn a few extra bucks every month, but with 10-30 minutes for every survey, and not being paid for all the surveys that you do (just those that they decide you qualify for, after you’ve done them), it sure seems like a lot of work for peanuts. If you’re not from the US, the number of surveys that you qualify for doesn’t really allow you to make a living of it, and the price for them is probably smaller.
However, if making money online with your own sites doesn’t seem to work for you, and you don’t need to make large sums of money online, you can give http://www.online-paid-surveys.net a shot.
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Thursday, November 8th, 2007
As part of the changes that I’ve announced for Shylock Blogging, I’ve decided to start a new category, called Money Making Interviews. The accent of this new category will be put more on the methods that people use to make money online and the tips that they can give for those methods.
First to be interviewed is David Peralty from eXtra For Every Publisher, a blog just a couple of months old, but with a quick growth, and written by a true Problogger. With over 5,000 articles written in the last few years, it’s safe to say that his blogging tips are the real deal. Head on to his blog after you read the interview, and subscribe if you want some great blogging tips.
David is currently the Head of Marketing at one of the biggest blog networks, Splashpress Media, and writing for well known blogs such as Blog Herald and Blogging Pro.
Hi David. First of all, could you please tell us a few things about yourself and your blogging background.
Well, my name is David Peralty, and I am a Canadian geek. I enjoy technology, and when I was in the sixth grade, I knew computers were going to be the thing I enjoyed in life. I worked towards becoming a Network Administrator, but once I hit the work world, after the 2000 tech crash here, I knew it was going to be difficult.
I sold some computers at a local computer store, and really was hoping to find a better job. During a period of time when I was unemployed, I really got into blogging. Mostly I used the time to talk about my personal life, my interests, but I saw that other people were making money online, and I wanted to talk about what they were doing and how.
I read Darren Rowse’s blog religiously, and one day he put up a post saying how he was going to go on vacation. He wanted to find people to guest post on a variety of blogs he had. I was lucky enough to be picked for the Laptops blog that he had.
After he came back, he offered me a part time position, but I was looking for a full time one, and that’s when Jacob Gower of Bloggy Network offered me one. That was over two years ago now. Currently, I am working with Splashpress Media as their Head of Marketing.
How much time did it take you to earn a living from blogging? I mean, being able to support yourself and your family from it.
Well, I am sort of a special case as I didn’t have to earn a living off of my own sites, or even new sites that were being built. The sites that I started on had already been around for months and even years.
If I had to make a living off my own blogs, I think I would only be getting to that point now, had I spent all my time working on my own sites. But if you want to know how long it was between getting really interested in blogging and becoming a full time blogger, you are looking at a period of maybe four months and you have to remember that I never expected to do this as my full time job.
What advice would you give someone that is looking to land a blogging job?
The best advice I could give anyone looking to land a blogging job with a network would be to communicate. Comment on their blogs, comment on other people’s blogs, and add to the online conversations. Make yourself highly visible, and prove that you have a unique and interesting voice to add because that is exactly what networks are looking for.
Other than that just write. Write until your fingers ache, write until you just can’t write anymore. Producing amazing content will get you noticed, and even if a network doesn’t pick you up, building your own brand never hurts.
If you knew when you started what you know now, what path would you choose? Would you still take a paid blogging job, or would you concentrate on your own blogs?
Well this is something I have wrestled with over the last two years, especially now that I have changed companies. While with Bloggy Network, I wrote well over 5,000 posts. How many blogs that aren’t spam blogs have that many posts? I probably could have made a decent name for myself, but without the full time income that the network provided me, would I have been able to make it happen? I really don’t know.
The biggest advantage that I have seen while working with networks is the people factor. I have learned so much from the great people around me, and that is something that has immense value to me, as each site that I have made on my own, or worked on for a network does better than the last, all thanks to the things I have learned.
If you had to give just one money making tip to a new blogger, what would it be?
The best money making tip that pops into mind is to learn how to network. If you can connect with other people in and outside your niche, you will be a step ahead of so many others. Thanks to all the people I have had the pleasure of talking to, Xfep has done better than any other site I have ever created and I would be making a huge mistake if I took all the credit for my successes.
In terms of blog promotion, what worked best for you? (social media, linkbait, networking, guest posts, great content)
Social media and networking by far. With millions of bloggers producing content it can be hard to be unique or really say something new and different. It can be hard to find time to do great guest posts. Linkbait can take a fair bit of time to formulate, research and write, but even short articles, properly promoted and distributed to people you have properly networked with can bring in huge amounts of traffic.
From all the programs that you tried so far, which one made you the most? (Adsense, Chitika, YPN, etc)
So far for me, it has been a tie between AdSense, and Text Link Ads. With the way everything has gone online with search engines, I have a feeling that AdSense is definitely going to take the lead for me.
Now also, I want to say that my inexperience with monetization, as well as my fears of driving visitors away through too much advertising limits what I earn through my own projects online, and so others might do much better than AdSense using other systems. In fact, I know many people do better through other systems with AdSense being a rather low performer.
If you don’t mind me asking, how much will you make in 2007? (overall, 4-5-6 figures?)
Well, after taxes are taken out I will have earned around low to mid $2x,xxx in 2007. I have to increase that to thirty-something in 2008, as the decline of the US dollar and increase of the Candian dollar continues to hurt how much I take home. Really my goal is to live a comfortable life. I don’t own a microwave, nor have cable television. I am using the cheapest VOIP connection money can buy and I still have t-shirts from high school. I am trying to be as thrifty as possible so that I can pay down my mortgage, have high speed Internet access, and help pay for my wife go back to school.
I know you’re working on a new project, as part of the network being launched by Mark from 45n5. What are your plans with AltScifi?
Yeah, I am a huge science fiction fan, and I have been for quite some time. I have a sci-fi blog called WarpSection, but it has basically died off, and part of the reason why is because I didn’t put good support systems in place to have it continue. With AltSciFi, I will have Mark from 45n5 helping me out, and I hope to build a community around the site where I can talk about my love of science fiction and meet others with similar interests.
Mark just recently got the barebones of the site running, and so I can finally begin to add content. We already posted an about page that I am sure will get some science fiction fans laughing.
I also know that you’ve got a secret project in the works. Is it a site aimed at bloggers?
No, not directly. I hope to make use of their passion and power online to promote the new site, but it won’t be blogging related. And really, the project is still a LONG way from being even close to ready, and is still in the planning and refining phase.
I hope to have it online for the world by sometime in the Summer of 2008. That tells you how big the project is for me. The current costs associated with it are going to be rather large, but I hope it will become a very useful service based site. I am currently exploring the possibility of finding marketing partners, icon designers and dozens of other talented people to fill spots in making it all happen, so if you know of anyone that could help, please send them my way via Xfep’s contact form.
Thanks for your time David, and good luck with your future projects.
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Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
It’s a small trick that’s not that hard to figure out, but its a bit inaccurate. All you have to do is take a look at the Google Analytics code that most people have installed, and see what number a certain piece of code has.
First, right click on the page, then select "View Page Source", or whatever it’s called in your browser. Look for the Google Analytics code or use Ctrl+F to search for the word analytics. The piece of code that you see below is what you’re looking for.
See the number 44 that I marked with red in the pic above? Every time you add a new site to your Google Analytics account, it creates a new code, that just keeps increasing with each new addition.
What does the number 44 from my source code tell you? That at the time I created this blog, on July 31st, this was the 44th Google Analytics code that I generated, meaning I had at that time 43 prior domains or subdomains with Google Analytics installed at one time or another (yeah, I really like mini-sites).
I’ve said from the beginning that it’s inaccurate, because of a few simple reasons. The older the code that was created, the bigger the chance that it’s inaccurate. Some domains I let expire, some sites were deleted, some were added since July 31st when this blog was created and some don’t even use Google Analytics.
Still, it’s a pretty cool trick. Can’t find any use for it, but it’s cool anyway.
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