Blogosis

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’ve experienced a giant bump in traffic suddenly. I am hoping that it is because of the refreshing new theme I spent about 6 hours modifying last night, but I am thinking word may finally be getting out about this contest. I’ve seen my subcribers (by email) jump from just 3 all the way to 8. Remember to activate the subscription by finding the link in your email from my Feedburner Feed. As of now there are two of you that need to do that. My mother thinks she can win my money, too. Sorry Mother, you are the one supposed to be giving me money. Hahaha. I know I am a horrible son.

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I am in a car or a bus for an hour to sometimes 3 hours a day. It gives me a while to think, manage future blog posts, and speculate on the finer aspects of blogging. I suddenly had this thought: “Most of the good bloggers started out with nothing. What if they started out with something? The money they had gave them a good push. Well, they’d make it to the top fast, but we don’t all have those kinds of resources. What if we faked it though? What if you make it seem like you are more successful then you really are?“

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You wanna know who is most likely to win this contest for over 50 dollars in prizes? It is this guy named Erz from Erzology. Not only did he subscribe by email, he wrote a blog post, and linked me on his index page. This guy has 11 chances to win. That brings the total count to an amazing… 13 ENTRIES!? What?.. Erz, you are dominating with an 11/13 chance to win.

I guess you just don’t want money.

Remember how easy it is to sign up for this contest. All you need to do is subscribe by email. For 5 more chances, you can write a blog entry and link to the contest, and another 5 entries if you put a link to the blog entry on your index page.

Prizes include 20 dollars (sent via paypal), a gift of your choice from amazon under 25$, 10% of my affiliate income, and a bunch of Entrecard credits (over 300 as of now).

Check here for more details.

In better news for me, my subscriber count jumped from 14 to 23 today. I’m really excited to see this blog growing and I hope my knowledge will be able to help a lot of other bloggers out there.

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.

I wanna sweeten up that little blog contest I am running. Not only will I be giving the $20 dollars cash, $25 dollars to spend on Amazon, and 10% of my revenue from my online ventures, but I am giving away all my Entrecard credits. I feel like Entrecard is a waste of time, so I put it on one of my trashier blogs. Haha. As of now, I have 260 credits. That grows about 25 credits a day, so by the end of this contest, you might have a few days of advertisements on the top blogs with Entrecard.

Remember, all you have to do for one chance to win is subscribe via email. For 5 more chances to win you can write a blog article linking to the blog contest url, add a link on your blogroll to the contest, or both for 10 chances to win.

And it is as easy as that. Come on! It is so easy, but I guess no one wants to win a free prize package of over $50 dollars. As of now, I have 2 email subscribers. If no one else subscribes, there is a 50/50 chance that you will win.

Subscribe now, and get a chance to win free money!

What is the best way to increase blog traffic? Start a contest. People want free money, so give it to them. You can’t just throw a contest and expect that traffic to stay afterwards. I feel like I have a pretty foolproof plan of what I am going to do to get that traffic, and how to keep it.

Here is the plan for the Monthly Blogosis Contest.

Every month there will be one winner randomly drawn. This winner will get a cash prize of an uncertain amount. Why am I unsure? Because it is constantly fluctuating, getting bigger and bigger. The prize: 10% of all my online income. This includes income from my Squidoo lenses, my other blogs ( moneyandblog dot com and stumbledhere dot com), my Adsense profits, any affiliate programs I use… absolutely every way I make money will give you a chance to make more money.

What? That is crazy, Justin! Hell yes it is, but I figure it’s the only way I will ever get traffic to this blog. Imagine that if in 1 year, I am making 10,000 dollars a month (I am only aiming for about 500, but you never know). That gives one lucky subscriber $1,000.

Justin! What do I have to do to enter?

• You will automatically be entered once if you subscribe to my RSS feed by Email.
• For 5 extra chances to win, write a blog post on your own blog about this contest, explaining what the prize and rules are (with a link back to this post, and one link to the Blogosis homepage ( www dot blogosis dot com)) and comment here with the link to the blog entry. If you have more than one blog, post it on that one too. (However, do not duplicate the post. Google hates that.)
• For another 5 chances, create a permanent link on your blog to this Blog entry. Comment here that you added the link, with a link to your homepage for me to see. On the first of each month, I will post a new entry for you to update. Remember to update the link and post every month as linking to the old posts deems it invalid, and you will not get the 5 extra chances.

So, what is the total prize so far? Well, not much. With Money and Blog being my first blog, and the one making most of the money (from Sponsored Reviews.com) I have about $10 from that, and about 13 dollars from Adsense. That makes the total 10% about $2.50. I know that isn’t a lot, so what I will do for the month of January is give you a little push. The winner will get an extra $20 dollars (plus the 10%) to celebrate my 20^th birthday on January 19^th. On top of that, I have $25 dollars on my Amazon.com account that I will use to buy the winner something (the prize must be under $25 dollars with shipping).

What is the point of this contest? Obviously to increase traffic to this blog, as well as my RSS subscribers numbers. I feel it is completely worth the money, as subscribers are hard to come by without the right connections. This is my attempt to make those connections.

So don’t miss your 11 chances to win this contest. At the moment I only have 1 email subscriber, so your chances are sky high on winning this.

Winners will be announced the 1^st of every month at approximately 12:00 pm (noon) Central Time. Ending time to gain chances to win will come 2 days before that at 12:00 pm.

For more updates on my wallet giving you money, Subscribe (and also get your chance to win.)

• P.S. Entrecard Credits have now been added to the prize stack. Click here for more info.

You will probably love Squidoo.What is Squidoo? It’s like Wikipedia in a sense. Members create pages about specific topics. The difference in Squidoo is that it allows for an infinite amount of topics to be posted, whether or not it has been previously posted or not, and it is yours and yours only.

The really cool thing about Squidoo is that while the pages are advertised with Adsense for Squidoo, they will split the money made from Adsense on your page. I like to think of it as a mini-blog/website due to the fact that you can constantly update it, or leave it static if you’d like. There are widgets and lots of options to help make money as well. They offer commission for people sent through your Lens (think of it like your blog) that purchase items. You can make money from Amazon and Ebay programs. If you choose to do so, the money you make can be sent to charity, all of it or some of it, instead of taking it all.

What do I use Squidoo for? I am a university student. I have to write a bunch of mindless crap, do 20 hours of research, and what do I get out of it? Besides kick ass grades, I lose about 6,000 dollars a semester. Well why not and try to make that money back? I could make a blog, but honestly, I can’t write a bunch of stuff on human rights, psychology, or American literature everyday, let alone manage the amount of blogs I would have. I think I’d rather die than type my professors history notes. So I will stick my papers and my notes up on Squidoo. It may or may not make money, and even if it isn’t a lot, I feel like the work I did for that paper deserves more than an A. The more Squidoo Lenses you have up, the more likely you are to make money. There are some users that are have already hundreds of lenses. Here is one blog with a man trying to make One Million Squidoo Lenses.

That is just one idea I have used Squidoo for. I’m sure there are lots of other things you can use it for. There are options to debate on lenses, groups can be formed, and if you make tons of lenses you can basically make your own network of Squidoo pages. The opportunities are amazing here. I suggest if you really like blogging, or any kind of writing, you check out Squidoo.

Wanna see my examples of Lenses? Here you go:

• Human Rights Violations of North Korea
• Lynn Hunt on Human Rights

Are you a noob to Squidoo? Subscribe to get more updates, fool

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 »