Make Money Online

I’ll be on the road to Digital Hollywood in LA from June 11 through the 14th, as we will be exhibiting stashSpace.com’s high-quality in-network video-sharing solution for broadband providers.

Many of the cable & dsl partners we are exploring partnerships with will be speaking at the event, and we thought it would be a good time to expose more of the industry to our unique consumer offering in the personal video space.

If you happen to be attending the show, please stop by!  We will be in booth 11, and would love to talk with you!

So I just found out that PayPal has two levels of Accounts, and in order for your account to receive payments from PayPal Website Payments or Instant Purchase for Auctions, you must go through the process of verifying your account.

This process essentially means that you need to enter routing and bank account information for one of your bank accounts.  PayPal will then make two small deposits in your account, which you must verify by confirming the amounts of these two deposits (this can take up to three days to show up in your online account).

I read about it.  I laughed about it.  After all, how hard could it really be to find time to regularly post to your blog(s)?  But having just gone through a 12-day dry spell myself, I now know first-hand some of the issues that can arise and smash your best-intentioned schedule to pieces.

So what happened?  I would call it everyday happenings.  My wife’s schedule got busy with community volunteer events.  My personal work schedule got extremely busy as we are busy pushing our latest online video editing & sharing software launchlive later today.  Our kids’ baseball and softball schedule got extremely unfriendly, with practices and games on every weeknight, with no similarity between the two. Between all the driving, working and fathering, little (no?) attention was spent on my blogs, whether it be online research or writing. 

So I spent a little time this morning trying to figure out what I could do to resolve this issue to a) either have it not happen again, or b) if it does happen again, to keep the “down-time” as short as possible.  Here’s what I came up with:

1. Determine what your “Regular” posting schedule is for each of your blogs.
   Not every blog needs to have daily postings, let alone multiple daily postings.  Determine what is a proper schedule for your blog, and be realistic.  As I add new blogs to my schedule, I try to set realistic weekly goals.  This gives you some flexibility in when you post, and lets you feel good about meeting your goals.  After a 4-5 week starting period, you can adjust your schedule accordingly.
    
2. Spend dedicated chunks of time writing
   Unless you are a professional copywriter (and even then), writing can be a bit of a chore.  Writing good content can be even more difficult.  I’ve found two things to help me with my writing - spending dedicated chunks of time writing content, and writing about related subjects during this time.  This is especially handy if you have a number of blogs that have varied content.  Don’t forget to get everything setup prior to starting and try to avoid all distractions during this.
    
3. Write for posts 3 days from now
   Don’t feel pressured to get posts up “right now”, unless it is related to a breaking news story.  Many of your blog posts can probably be considered “evergreen”, and as such would be as effective 3 days from now as it would be today.  If you aim to have daily posts, write seven posts in one day (See #2 above) and then use your blogging platform to schedule the publishing of these posts over the course of a week.
    
4. Write shorter posts, followup later if needed
   Not every one of your posts needs to be a literary tome.  Quick updates, 50-word tips, a short review and link to a site of interest can all be ways to shorten your required “posting time” when you find yourself in a time-crunch.  If a post warrants a follow-up, you can always write it and reference your original post at a future date.
    
5. Use Paid Review sites or article sites to combat writer’s block
   Regardless of whether you participate in one of the Paid Review services such as PayPerPost, ReviewMe, or SponsoredReviews, or submit articles to a paid-article site such as Helium, I would recommend signing up for one (or more) of these services to serve as inspiration when your idea tank has run empty.
    
6. Review Press Releases for latest company information
   Press Release websites exist for many paid release services that companies use when launching new products or when they have news or information to reach the public.  You can review these press releases and search for terms relevant to your blog for ideas or to find news relevant to your readers.  PrNewswire, PRWeb and BusinessWire three of my regular stops.

Lunacy about Life, Dogs and Anxiety is how Cynthia describes this blog. It’s a great example of segmentation, as the topics of this blog (general anxiety and social anxiety) had previously been covered on her dog blog. Both are cleaned up now and more on-topic, which really should help both sites long term.

Cynthia currently lives in Salt Lake City, although she confesses she wants to move up to Southern Oregon or Washington State (I recommend WA, my home state myself). In addition to her blogging activities, she has also recently incorporated Utah Collie Rescue, Inc. My wife has always wanted to start a rescue operation for farm animals, but we’ve never been able to get it off the ground, so she has volunteered quite frequently for a wild cat rescue organization. I have a tremendous amount of respect for what Cynthia is doing down in Utah… keep it up!

Blogging, Tech, and Making Money - “A Random Walk To Wealth” - is how Kenneth Dickson describes his blog.  Kenneth resides in Taiwan, and has been blogging since October.  He seems to be on the same path as I am here at Lugnut22, looking to make money by blogging and sharing his experiences along the way. He has three other blogs, but InvestorBlogger seems to be his key focus currently.

Kenneth seems to have certainly enjoyed some success since starting in October, with a PageRank of 3/4, an Alexa Ranking just about to break 100,000, and 40+ Fav’s in Technorati.  And he’s already earned close to $1,200 through his blogging activities, including PayPerPost and Text Link Ads.

One of his posts detailed a service - Smart Page Rank - that I had not yet been aware of.  It’s a quick and easy way to check a number of key rankings important to you as you try to improve your prospects of making money online.

I just listed Online Video Sharing into the Sponsored Reviews system.  Unlike ReviewMe, SponsoredReviews.com only charges a 35% administrative fee.  They also require a 3 to 1 ratio of original (i.e. unpaid) posts to paid posts, which lends itself better to blogs that are primarily targeted toward adsense or affiliates for revenue generation.

If you need a review for a video or photo-related website, check out my profile on SponsoredReviews.  Online Video Sharing is a blog focusing on reviews and updates from Web 2.0 video sharing and photo-sharing start-ups, user-generated content, video-oriented social networking, and the technology that holds it all together.

All of the “building your audience” tips usually start by saying you should read a few blogs and comment on them. But I have to confess I always am a bit hesitant to start commenting on someone else’s blog in what could be considered some blatant spam.

So I spent some time today stumbling across a few blogs and really got caught up in a couple of them. It is interesting to see how other people are approaching their blog, and seeing the differences between authors that have been at it for a year or more, and those that have just started in the last few months. I decided that I would start taking some time to give some free link-love to sites that I run across that caught my eye for one reason or another.

First up? TheAlyCat’s Claws - Aly’s Thoughts and opinions on Music, TV, Products, Weight-loss, and life in general. Aly is a stay-at-home Mom in Fairfield, CA that apparently is moving to Guam in August as her husband is in the military. She is utilizing the PayPerPost network (along with others?) to monetize her blog, and her husband has his own blog as well. Her posts range from their son’s activities to issues with the latest episode of House or Sopranos (I like House, but Soprano’s not so much), all imbued with a glib sense of humor.

I’m lucky enough to be married to a Stay-at-home Mom as well (or should I say “working” mom?) who takes care of our three kids, and could certainly relate to some of Aly’s stories about her son, as we are going through similar

I can also relate to Aly’s experience with Protein Pancakes, although when done properly, Aly also has a recipe that apparently tastes good. I’ll need to try it out. In addition to her personal blog, she also maintains Stuff on Stuff, a blog of consumer tips and my reviews of products and services.

Like all of us, Aly’s looking to get a better Page Rank to be able to take better opportunities at PPP. Check out her sites, and be sure to Fav ‘em on Technorati, and/or write your own review to help her out!

When I started blogging (only one month ago now?), I really had no idea what people earn who are blogging for money. It is still a bit fuzzy, and many numbers are being thrown about. To top it all off, many people think that just by blogging about about how to blog for money, they will punch their ticket to online fame and fortune.

Truth be told, there are only a few bloggers who will own that space, and if you had not started your blog about blogging in 2005, chances are you’ve already missed the boat. Darren over at ProBlogger and others have already nailed that market with informative and authoritative content about Professional Blogging. Ironically enough, these professionals also do not seem to make the bulk of their income from these blogs, instead earning their income from content/product sites that are much more targeted.

But back to the question at hand - How much money can you make online with blogging? By most reports, most bloggers earn less than $100/month. But don’t get discouraged! Your efforts are not a sprint, and you won’t start making money right off the bat. New services like PayPerPost and Blogsvertise have certainly helped new bloggers make money at their start, but you really need a 4 to 6 month period of blogging consistently (including content creation and networking) before starting to see results through increased Search Engine Traffic and organic travel overall.

And finally, someone has started to develop a list (lists are great!) of blogger earnings that consists of bloggers who disclose their income online. Paula’s list of blogger salaries runs the gamut of blogger earnings, from a low of $480/year to a high of $3.6 million/year. Don’t be discouraged by the low number of high “salaries” on the list - many bloggers do not disclose their earnings - but use it as a measuring stick to learn about other bloggers and what they are doing to make money online.

In an earlier post, I wrote about Chitika eMiniMalls, and had mentioned that they were probably best suited for blogs or websites heavily focused on product reviews.  Well, apparently they think the same, as this website was not accepted into their network.  Another site in our network - DVGadgets is launching later this month, so we will be submitting them to the Chitika network to see whether we can’t get started.  From what I’ve heard from others, Chitika advertising can be a very lucrative PPC program if used correctly.  I’ll continue to update as we find out more.

Depending on the online business that you start to make money online, you may at one point need to be able to process credit cards. But as a new online business you may have a hard time finding a company to process your transactions for a reasonable fee, especially if you are selling actual products online.

If you are looking for merchant solutions for your online business, you want to check out AdvantageProcessors.Com, a company that can handle your online credit card processing whether you are an established business (low-risk) or are a new online business and need high-risk credit card processing services.  Their team of sales agents will work with you to understand your business and find you the best processing rates for your business.