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Most of my readers know that I give them some tips on monetizing their websites and blogs from time to time, and that one of the ways I try to scare up some cash is to run my Starving Artist Sale to sell my Adsense Backgrounds for Five Lousy Bucks, but I recently ran across yet another innovative way to make money online that you don’t hear discussed very often … Virtual Begging

The first time I heard of this method was when I came across the Save Toby Website, which was a spectacular success, by the way. Then I encountered the Virtual Begging method when I noticed the “Buy Me a Beer” plugin that a lot of people use. I tried it briefly, but no one bought me a beer.

One of the funniest sites I’ve run across is the Digital Beggar … no other purpose but to beg for money with a script that changes the message every time the page is loaded. I don’t know how successful he is at soliciting donations, but the idea is unique and the implementation humorous.

Here’s some other graphics that gave me a chuckle the other day when I found them here.

So with all the make money online scams out there, perhaps getting rid of the ads and posting one of these in your sidebar is the way to go. What do you think?

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FROM: JOHNCHOW.COM: Misleading Credit Pricing
Something that Entrecard needs to work on is its pricing system. For the longest time, I was the most expensive blog in the network. Now I’m not even on page one. This is because of members mass dropping cards in order to inflate their price and build up their credits. The current number one site cost 466 credits per day but has only 72 RSS readers (he wisely removed the FeedBurner count from his blog).This gaming of the system is making it hard to tell which sites will deliver traffic and which sites won’t send anything. I wouldn’t spend 466 credit to advertise on a blog with only 72 RSS readers but all his spots are sold. People think high price equal quality but for many Entrecard member sites, that is not the case. Until Entrecard figures out a way to prevent gaming of their system, you should check out the site more to prevent having your hard earned credits wasted.Get 200 Entrecard Credits

Entrecard allows me to send any credit amount I want to another Entrecard user. So, the first 35 Entrecard users who writes a recommendation for me will each get 200 credit add to his account. That’s still not enough to buy a spot on this blog but it’ll get you a lot closer. You don’t have to use the credit to advertise on my blog - feel free to use it to buy space on any of the 2,500 blogs in the Entrecard system. In order to write a recommendation and get the 200 credits, you need to be an Entrecard member.

John Chow, of all people to complain about gaming the system, is doing exactly that. While bribing people with a measly 200 Entrecard credits to give him an Entrecard review, he bemoans the fact that he is no longer on the front page of Entrecard for his category. He belittles the higher priced blogs that are on the front page by speculating that they are just worthless mass card droppers and that your points are better spent on a “quality” splog like his. I recently read one blogger who paid for an ad on Chow and received a whopping 43 visitors from the ad. Whoooop didooooo … 43 visitors.

In reality, the leaders of the category “Making Money Online” are some hard working dedicated bloggers who post quality content and work hard to drive traffic to their blogs as opposed to such banal content as what they had to eat today or bribes for Entrecard recommendations. In the top 3 listings are the likes of Problogger, one of the top blogs on the Net, famous for it’s quality content.

Of course, John is no stranger to gaming the system. Bitch Slapped by Google, banned by Digg and Technorati, John is a Master Gamer. Gaming the system only seems to bother him when the tables are turned and someone else is on top. See also: John Chow Buys Comments | Evil Blog Promotion Ideas | Evil Blog Contest | John Chow Stuffs Cookies — Pretty obvious that Chow’s evil gaming methods have made his blog popular rather than quality content.

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Main Entry: mogul
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: owner
Synonyms: VIP*, baron, beef, big cheese, big gun, big shot, big wheel, czar, executive, key player*, king, kingpin, lord, magnate, merchant, prince, notable, personage, potentate, prince, royalty, sachem, top brass*, tycoon
Source: Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)

I have participated in a lot of “make money online” forums and one thing I’ve noticed is that when the newbies come in, some fresh from reading a “get rich quick” type of ebook such as the Rich Jerk ebook or others, they are still completely clueless as to what it is they want to accomplish and how they will get there. They’ve been sold a bill of goods … the “make money online while you’re sleeping” bill of goods, and they’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

You can see the amateurish looking little splogs they throw together and release into cyberspace, and then they sit and wait for the dollars to start rolling in. After as little as a few days after their “big launch,” they begin to ask questions in the forum like …. “my site is up, where’s the money?” They’ve fallen into the trap of putting yet another review splog together, thrown a few banners onto it and they’re ready to be the next Dot Dom Mogul.

Perhaps some of these are just really lazy people who are looking to make money without putting much effort into it, but a lot of them have been sold this dream of “easy money” and honestly believe it. Just look at the title and domain of the blog I created when I first got into Internet Marketing and I fell for the same crap. Now I’m stuck with the domain. I’ve got a pagerank 3 and my Alexa rating is on the rise, so I don’t want to just abandon all that.

These Get Rich Quick gurus are gaming you. If you are a newbie and anxious to achieve Dot Com Mogul status or at least just make a ton of money, the hard reality of it is that like any other job, blogging for bucks or Internet Marketing is work and it takes time to build a successful online business. So … who am I anyway? Am I a Dot Com Mogul that carries authority and someone you should believe? Read the rest of this entry »

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I found these two shops for blogs … PrestoGifto and PopShops. PrestoGifto integrates CafePress products in your blog and PopShops integrates products from Commission Junction, Linkshare, ShareASale, LinkConnector, Performics and Red Galoshes, so you will need to be a member of these networks to utilize these shops.

If you look at the links in my nav bar, you’ll see Blogger’s Shop. That is a PrestoGifto shop. The one that says Books and Stuff is the PopShop. So far, I’m getting a lot more clicks on the PrestoGifto (CafePress) products, but I just installed these yesterday so it’s too soon to tell how either of these will work out.

Both shops are easy to install and integrate. PopShops takes a bit longer to set up since you can choose up to 100 products. Both of these shops are still in Beta but seem to function beautifully. PopShops has a feature you can install that will put a little pop button in your “write post” bar and you can pop a product in the post. I’ll pop one in here to show you … lol. They do have a much larger selection of products to choose from so if you aren’t pushing “blogging thongs” not to worry. You can choose your products by keywords. Very simple to add an ad to your post with PopShops. Read the rest of this entry »

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If you haven’t heard of blurb.com, you should check it out. It’s a website where you can self-publish your own book, whether it’s a wedding album, a baby book, a family photo album, or an informational book on topics that you are passionate or knowledgeable in. You could also publish a portfolio that showcases your own business.

The process is fairly simple. They offer free software for creating your book. Download the software and select the type of book you’d like to make. Add photos, text, stories … whatever you want and your book is done. You can have it printed in a variety of sizes and with soft cover or hardcover. There are many different categories to choose from. Some of the more popular ones are Arts & Photography, Travel, Wedding, Children, Biographies & Memoirs, Sports & Adventure, Poetry, Fine Art Photography, Parenting & Families, and Cooking. Got a hobby you’d like to write about or some secret family recipes to share … gardening tips, do-it-yourself tips. Write a book about it.

Once your book is done, you can then offer it for sale in the blurb.com bookstore. Check out some of their bestsellers here. Great service, reasonable pricing for self-publishing your own books.

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In addition to monetizing your own blog with advertising spots, paid reviews, affiliate marketing, etc., there are many opportunities on the Net for getting paid to blog.

ProBlogger has a list of blogging opportunities on it’s site.

Sign up at Helium. “Where publishers and freelancers meet.” At Helium’s Marketplace, publishers post the titles they need articles for right now. Publishers are paying from $20 to $200 for each selected article.

B5 Media. They normally post their job openings for bloggers at ProBlogger.

Blogger Jobs.biz. Career blogging listings. Read the rest of this entry »

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Found this site recently and can’t believe it, but it’s free to use. Sketchcast. Just record your sketch with or without voice and get the code to embed the sketch in your blog or anywhere on the web. Very much the same concept as whiteboarding. Get creative and create your own sketchcast … embed it all over the place and let it go viral. Sketchcast

For more tips on making money online, visit Million Dollar Dame

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Here are some real money-making products, paying some of the highest commissions in affiliate marketing available. Typically, I make $100 to #300 commissions from these products. I just made $175 commission from their newest product. Why make $20-$30 per sale selling ebooks on Clickbank when you can make hundreds per sale? Joe Bucks gives hundreds of top converting products to sell and free branded websites for many of their products. The branded websites are a real time-saver. You can literally have a full-blown website up and running within 30 minutes with no design or html experience. All you need is a domain name and a hosting account. You can get free hosting at The Red Host

MoreNiche is another company with very high paying commissions and I have done very well with their products.In addition to these, I also sell products and services from Commission Junction, Linkshare, ROI Rocket, Adzoogleads, and Max Bounty. Personally, I don’t like selling informational ebooks. I find selling products to be much easier and a lot more profitable. In addition, there’s what I consider a huge problem with Clickbank. Spybot Search and Destroy and some other anti-spyware programs strip out your Clickbank tracking cookies, so you could send tons of traffic to Clickbank products and never get credited for the sales you make. Spybot Search and Destroy is widely distributed, so the problem is massive. Webroot Spy Sweeper is another anti-spyware program that strips out Clickbank cookies, and I am sure there are more.

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A friend in a forum that I’m a member of ran across This article by DotSauce with at least 55 active RSS directories that accept your RSS Feed link. I spent a relatively small amount of time submitting this blog to all of them and have noted a big increase in traffic pretty much immediately. If you’re into domaining, DotSauce is a great online resource in addition to the very useful RSS Feed list that he posted.

Here’s another list I found of directories to submit your blog to and in some cases, your RSS Feed. Some of them are redundant, but some are new.

My Top Five Recommended Blog Directories:

1. Best of the Web Blogs

2. Blog Catalog

3. Blog Hub

4. Blog Flux

5. Blog Wise

Other Blog Directories To Consider:

Blogarama

Globe of Blogs

Blogbib (paid or reciprocal required)

Blog Dex

Blog Directory Submit (reciprocal required)

Blog Intro (no PageRank)

Blog Search

Blogtastic (paid)

Blog Universe

Bulletize

EatonWeb

FeedCat

FeedDirectory

Feeds4All

Finding Blog (redirects links)

AddUrlBlog- (closed for submission until years end)

RSS Mad

Miscellaneous Topical Blog Directories:

Blog Burst (adds your blog post to major media website)

Blogdir - (Spanish blog community)

Blog Street (India Directory)

BritBlog (British Directory)

Boing Boing (submit blog posts for review)

iBlogBusiness (adds business blogs only)

Blog Search Engines That You Can Submit Your RSS Feed

Blog Hop

Blo.gs

Bloogz

Blog Lines

Blog Digger

Blogz

Blog Pulse

Feed Map

Read A Blog

IceRocket

RSS Network

Syndic8

DayPop

Technorati

Postami

2RSS

News Mob

More Over

Ping-O-Matic (submits to multiple rss feed submissions websites at once)

FeedFarm

RSSFeeds

Search4RSS

Feed Directory

FeedPlex

Feeds4All

Plazoo

Feed24

Feeds 2 Read

JordoMedia

Feed Bomb

nFeeds

Feedooyoo

Feed Age

Golden Feed

RSS Micro

Octora RSS Feeds

Feed Fury

FindRSS

Day Time News

Miscellaneous Topical Blog Search Engines:

Edu RSS (educational only)

Educational Feeds

Feeds.com.br (Brasil only)

Finance Investing Feeds

Realty Feeds

Medical Feeds

Science Port

Sports Feeds

Political Feeds

Government Feeds

RSS Verzeichnis

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Here are some other things that I do to get traffic and search engine links. I’ll start with No. 1

USFreeads.com: buy a premium account with USFreeads and place ads/articles about your products. I can’t tell you how much traffic I get from USFreeAds. It’s a lot. In addition, Google spiders the ads and indexes them.

Squidoo: Some people think Squidoo is not as effective as it once was since it’s crackdown on SPAM lenses. I haven’t found that to be true. The only thing really different is you have to build a better lense. More content, less spammy. I just built a lense on getting paid for social networking at Yuwie and FriendsWin, and it ended up on the first page results of Google.

Blogging: Google seems to love Wordpress blogs. Frequent updates to your Wordpress blogs is a great way to drive traffic to your sites or to market from directly. Again, you need to take the time to make informational posts … posts that people actually want to read rather than just a bunch of affiliate banners. Give your readers a reason to return to your blog over and over again. In addition, I think it’s better to get a domain name for your blog, install it using Fantastico from the control panel of your hosting company rather than having it hosted by Wordpress. I had a blog hosted by Wordpress and they banned it, so all that work down the drain. Host it yourself and that’s not going to happen.

Backlinks: Backlinks are crucial for getting sites indexed and getting good ranking from Google. I’m fortunate enough to have purchased the Trackback Generator, a really handy bit of software that was sold by Ruck (limited quantities sold, no longer available), but you can leave comments on blogs, make posts in forums, etc. to get backlinks to your site.

Yahoo Answers: Another great way to market is Yahoo Answers. Look for unanswered questions in your niche or you can even make two Yahoo accounts … one for questions and one for answers and answer your own questions. Answer as many questions a day as you can. You get backlinks and the opportunity to market a product. You do have to be careful … make it sound like spam and you will be banned in short order. Try to make posts that sound helpful.

Social Bookmarking: This is one I use a lot and it gets excellent results, both in direct traffic from the social networks and in backlinks to your site. Traffic coming from the social bookmarking sites is nothing short of phenomenal. If you’re not using social bookmarks for your sites, you’re missing out on a goldmine. Absolutely one of the most reliable and useful products I’ve bought is Bookmarking Demon. It really rocks. Completely automates the social bookmarking process and you can do a bit of blackhatting and create multiple accounts if you’re so inclined.

New version, new features!

* Create Accounts Automatically At Sites Running The Scuttle Script

* Bookmark Your URLs Automatically

For more tips on making money online, visit Million Dollar Dame

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