Make Money Online

Ad Volcano is a new internet advertising service providing a marketplace for bloggers and advertisers to come together to sell or purchase advertisements.  In looking at the site, it appears to already have signed up a large network of over 800+ publishers, including JohnChow.com, who has priced his banner ad at $700/month.

As a blogger, you have the ability to boost your earnings and price your own links coming from your site, and Ad Volcano passes 75% of the revenue along to you, keeping 25% as a management fee.

Advertisers get the benefit of purchasing ads on a Cost-Per-Term basis to bring predictability to the cost of their ads on this network without having to worry about the potential of click fraud which seems inherent to any cost-per-click advertising campaign.

All-in-all, it seems that Ad Volcano has done a good job in attracting publishers since their launch in January.  If they have done as good a job in attracting advertisers, then I think we have a welcome addition to the advertising scene for bloggers wanting to make money online.

Category Sponsored Reviews | No Comments »

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).

Category Uncategorized | No Comments »

Payday cash advances are often an option of last resort for many people when facing an end-of-month cash crunch.  While I wouldn’t recommend cash advance payday loans to be used on a regular basis to meet budgetable items (especially if you can’t pay it back with your next paycheck), they can come in especially handy if you need to meet an unexpected or sudden cash need.

If you need a payday advance, you can go through an online service at http://www.paydaycashadvanceloans.biz, to request your loan, provided you are/can:

• Be at least 18 years old.
• Provide proof of identification and current employment.
• Have a current job for the last 90 days with a steady income.
• Earn at least $1,000 per month.
• Be a U.S. citizen or resident of the United States.
• Own a checking account.
• Provide your present home address, home & work phone number, and email address.

Category Sponsored Reviews | No Comments »

My first post through SponsoredReviews is completed and available here at my Online Video Sharing blog.  I have yet to be contacted through the Advertiser marketplace for a sponsored review.  Instead, this review for PhotoFrameShow was initiated by my bidding on the opportunity in a marketplace similar to PayPerPost, except that I was able to bid an amount for which I was willing to do the sponsored post.  We’ll see how it continues to go.  This particular blog is very niche-oriented, so I don’t expect to be doing too many sponsored posts there except as highly relevant opportunities present themselves.

Category Online Business, Weblogs | No Comments »

I’ve had all my insurance with one company over the years - Home, Auto and Life.  It was simple and easy.  However, my company just dropped my HomeOwners Insurance, and for the first time I’m considering other companies for my Car insurance.  In my case, I visited SecureInsuranceQuotes’ insurance page for Washington State, filled out a quick form, and then received an email confirmation from the service.

I would have personally liked to have received immediate on-line quotes from the service, but the email I received indicated that additional information will be shortly forthcoming so I can receive “Instant Insurance Coverage” for my VW Passat.

SecureInsuranceQuotes is not an insurance broker, but rather a marketing service provided on behalf of insurance brokers.  They also provide information on other Insurance services including Home Insurance, Life Insurance and Health Insurance.

Category Sponsored Reviews | No Comments »

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.

Category Weblogs | 3 Comments »

PayPerPost has announced a new service similar to SponsoredReviews and ReviewMe – PayPerPost Direct.  If you are trying to make money blogging, this is another tool that you can use to mazimize your profits.

However, it seems that PayPerPost has done an end-run around both of their primary competitors in this direct-to-blogger marketplace.  They are only charging a 10% transaction fee for their PPP Direct service, and instead of penalizing the blogger by reducing their post amount, they are charging the 10% fee to the advertiser!

This means that if you charge $50 for a post on your blog, you will receive the full $50 from the advertiser, and they will pay a nominal $5 service fee to PayPerPost.   Compare that to SponsoredReviews, which would only give you $32.50 and keep $17.50 for themselves, or ReviewMe, which would give you $25.00 while keeping a tidy $25.00 for themselves.  All for you advertising their service on YOUR Blog!

Even more of note is that PPP Direct essentially takes the middleman completely out of the relationship between advertiser and blogger when you consider that ~ 5% of the transaction goes directly to fees charged by credit card companies (advertisers usually pay PayPerPost via credit card) and PayPal (used to compensate bloggers).  So any way you cut it, competitors are charging 7 to 10 times as much as PPP Direct does.

This increased efficiency will keep more money available to the blogger <=> advertiser relationship and will result in better pay for bloggers and better/more results for the companies choosing to advertising in this fashion.  And that is ultimately good for everyone involved.

Category Pay Per Post, Sponsored Reviews | No Comments »

I got notification last week that my first bid through Sponsored Reviews was accepted for Photo Frame Show.  The process was easy. I submitted one of my PR3 blogs - Online Video Sharing - for the service, and then bid on 2 of the posted projects from advertisers.  One of the bids (for Photo Frame Show) has been accepted, and I was given 10 days to create the post.  Unlike some of my blogs, Online Video Sharing is an editorial site largely given to (unpaid) review of existing online video and photo sharing companies and their enabling technology.  It is a site that I am very selective with in terms of paid compensation, and only accept paid reviews for sites that are relevant or companies that I would normally look to promote.

I’ll let you all know how the paid review process continues with Sponsored Reviews.

Category Uncategorized | No Comments »

Finding an office space for your business can be a tricky endeavor. One of the advantages of making money online is that you typically don’t need office space when you are just starting out. But as you start growing your business, you don’t want to have employees coming to your house every day. That’s when it’s time to find some help from a company involved in Corporate Real Estate Services.

For example, if you are looking for Denver Office Space, you can work with MacLaurin Williams, which provides Tenant Representation services needed for everything from Lease Renewal to a Building Purchase or Sale. They can save you some serious dough - check out how MacLaurin Williams saved $365,000 for Prima Energy in Denver by finding them 16,000 square feet of office space for a relocation in 90 days!

Category Sponsored Reviews | No Comments »

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!

Category BlogNuts | 1 Comment »