Blogosis

I am officially, at least in Thailand, no longer a teenager. I still have about 11 hours till the official time, so I will try and enjoy these last years of truly being a kid.

If you would really like to make my birthday a joy, send me a gift I’d really like. What would I like? Questions! I made this post earlier asking for your questions. They can be about the blogger that I am, my ideas on anything, or a random thing that has nothing to do with anything. Also, you might stand a chance to win free advertising here for 1 month if I really like your question. This also applies to any comments made here or any other blog article posted after this one.

I also want to remind you of my blog cash giveaway. It’s easy to win, and the pot is now over $25 dollars via paypal (and grows daily if my advertising does any good.), a prize from Amazon for up to $25 dollars (that is with shipping), and a pot of what I estimate will be 500 - 600 Entrecard credits. One chance if you sign up to my RSS feed by email, 5 to blog about it on your blog, and 5 chances if you put me on your blog roll. Check HERE for more details. So far there are about 40 entries.

I’m experimenting with new ads. WidgetBucks has been a really good performer, and I am making money with referals, too. They pay me for every click I get and 1000 views gets me a little cash, too. Bidvertiser has got me a grand total of 46 cents, but that was only 1 click. I’ve got a couple referals so maybe I’ll get some extra cash there too. Adbrite is a nice performer. I make about a cent for every 100 views, and I’ve built up a few clicks. This has been a great alternative to Adsense. If you want to help this blogger out on his birthday, sign up using my referral links (please… hahaha). This would make me a very happy birthday boy! And now I’m done selling you my affiliates. Oh wait, I also got paid using Sponsored Reviews. That made me a grand total of about 15 dollars. The writing I did for that money took less than 1 hour.

The best gift I’m getting this birthday? A guest post on Problogger.net! When Darren accepted my post I made sure I yelled a big “Hell yeah!” He said he will post it this weekend of early next week, so look for it! It’s a helpful post, but remains full of humor. I just want to say thanks to Darren Rowse for giving such a great opportunity to a new blogger like myself. It gives me a great sense of pride in my blog writing to be featured on Problogger.

One more thing, I’m doing some SEO on this blog. I’m shooting for big blogging keywords, so I doubt I will drag in much traffic, but if you work hard enough on something you may get what you ask for. That is what I am hoping for, at least. Perseverance is the key. Try, try, try again until you fail, and keep trying, learning from your failures. That is old knowledge though. I won’t bore you guys any longer.

Enough with me selling my contests, affiliates and blog notes, though. I went to see Cloverfield this night. The movie is really fun, grabs you, and takes you through a lot of dilemmas that makes you think “What if..?” Anyone else catch the film? It wasn’t quite what I expected, but still a good movie worth a matinée watch if not any other time of the day. Cloverfield even inspired me to write a blog post. You should see it up on Monday or someday around there. Make sure you subscribe to catch it.

About 20 more hours to comment or ask me a question so make sure you get on this for a free month of advertising. Imagine the traffic that may trickle to you after my Problogger post.

This blog was recently approved for a pay-per post service, Sponsored Reviews. Sponsored Reviews is just one of several, such as Smorty and PayPerPost that offers you money to post about predefined topics, normally a website, service or product. Payments on Sponsored Reviews start at about 5 dollars per post, which Sponsored Reviews takes a percentage of (I think you keep about 65% or so). You write a quick post 50-500 words in length (determined by the advertiser), add some links in, and post. Simple as that, and you have made some really easy money. The main problem with these kinds of services, is that if Google sees this, Google cuts up your PageRank and flushes it down the toilet. We all just love Google, don’t we? So should PPP be part of your blogging monetizing plan?

My question to myself when entering this article was: Should I post for SponsoredReviews (dot) com? Google seems on edge more than ever, disabling my Adsense account, destroying their referral program, and now cutting page rank for what is basically advertising. What my question comes down to, is PageRank really important for my blog, Blogosis, to be successful, or would I obtain more money going ahead with Sponsored Review.What is PageRank useful for? Bigger advertisers will want to gain links from highly ranked web pages and blogs. Also, pages with a higher rank get better results for Google search results, especially with competitive keywords. Is this important for Blogosis as it stands now? No.I am building links to this blog using word of mouth, commenting other blogs, social media, personal contacts, and my contest seems to be building up the steam, too. I have done very little search engine optimization. While it is in the works, I just don’t feel like this blog has reached a point where I really need to focus on keywords, especially cause the topic of blogging is so broad. I also have a deep disgust for Google. They already took my money, they don’t need anymore for my keywords.So in this sense, yes why not post with Sponsored Reviews? I will tell you why I am still iffy about it. It would make my blog look messy, I might have to try and sell a product that I don’t really endorse, and with that comes the ethics of pay to post.I don’t want to have to write a whole blog article to sell a product. Blogosis would look like a maze if I started blogging about things that just don’t fit in. There are many different products to make money from, but not many that might actually deal with your niche. For instance, if you have a make money blog (which is a subcategory of this blog), you wouldn’t find ads for affiliate programs, but ads for loans, gambling sites, and insurance deals. You can see how they just might not fit the context of any blog.Of course, if I added these posts to Blogosis, it would be for my own personal gain. The problem with that is that this blog is here to help you, the reader, the subscriber with your own adventures into blogging. I don’t want to start posting positive reviews on things I don’t actually use. They almost all require you to make the blog entry positive and natural. You are selling a product when you post these kinds of things. Is that really ethical though, sponsoring a product you don’t use of care for?

Thats probably the biggest deal with this kind of posting. I wrote a blog about Jack from Jackbook (dot) com on one of my other blogs. He made a really gushy post of why he stopped posting paid posts. He felt bad for his readers, like he was doing something wrong. The ethics of it were so poor he “felt bad with his heart.” I guess selling a poor product can have that effect. What if you end up actually making someone buy in, and they end up with something that was opposite of what they expected. As humans, we would naturally feel guilty for that kind of action.

So, will I do paid for posts? Yes, because I am greedy. Haha. Actually, what I think I will do is only do it when the product works with the site, if it is worth while to sell (we’re talking money, people.), and only when I have enough posts to wrap around it in one day (I post one blog entry for Blogosis, post the paid post, and then another article for Blogosis). This will keep it away from the top of the blog, where I want the important messages to be. Also, I will take 25% of any money I make from Sponsored Reviews, Smorty, or other PPP services and put it towards the Blogosis Monthly Contest. How does this sound? If I am going to put crap on this blog, I at least want my subscribers to benefit.

For more information on PPP affiliates, check out my right sidebar or these links: Smorty and SponsoredReviews

Is making money from PPP ethical for you? Why or why not? Comment and let me know.

I got screwed by Google. They canceled my account, so what did I do, I went out and found every alternative I could.

But now that I’ve found all these alternatives, I am not just going to waste them. Got some time to sit down and start browsing some affiliate programs? Here you go. A giant list of pay-per click (and some CPM) ad programs. Read the rest of this entry »

Why weren’t my Google Adsense ads appearing in my posts? I logged into my Adsense account, and here is what I get:

Dammit Google. Have I been clicking my own links? No. Have I been telling others to click my links? No. Yet, they found something to pick on with someone who has only made 13 dollars over 1 month. Screw that.

They haven’t sent me any emails, and knowing how “busy” the Google squad is sitting in their billions, I doubt I will ever get one. I’ve emailed them, however, so there maybe be a .oo1% chance I could get my account back. Good luck with that, Bud.

I’m dissappointed, but it is just a small roadblock in the road. I can always sign up with Yahoo’s affiliate program, and I already littered this page with lots of affiliates. Don’t worry, I am working on cleaning that up.

My question to the readers! What should I do next? What have you had the best luck using as far as PPC advertising goes? (Not including Google Adsense)

Has Google singled you out? Join the club and Subscribe.

In a totally uncalled for move Google and Yahoo’s affiliate programs have changed. And it isn’t looking good.

Let us start off with Google Adsense. For those using it in North America, Latin America and Japan, the pricing system on referrals is being completely rewritten. In the old system, if your referral made 10 dollars, so did you. You would get $250 for referring someone who made $100 (in 180 days), and if you refer 25 people who made $100 within 180 days you would get a bonus payment of a cool $2000. Say good bye to the old.. Read the rest of this entry »