Archives for November 2008

The December WidgetBucks Experiment

by Melvin · Nov 29, 2008

When I tried Widgetbucks almost a year ago, I had great hopes that it can make me more money than Adsense. The truth is it really did! 2 weeks after joining widgetbucks I was banned from Adsense for what they called “gaming” them! I made about a nice $31 on one of my sites back then. But well widgetbucks just dont blend well w/my sites. The widgets drastically make my sites slower to load and most people are pissed w/it.

Until November, when widgetbucks made a makeover and they did email everyone about their rvamped network. So I gave it a go to this blog and you can see it running at the right bottom part. Basically what convinced me to put this into it is the fact that we are close to holiday and people are likely interested with holiday/christmas items like Christmas trees and so on. Also companies are giving out massive discounts and fire sales for great products so its easy to have their attention.

Anyway widgetbucks pays on two types. First is for clicks. They pay some pennies per click if the clicks are from US and Canada I believe. They also pay on a CPM basis for most countries I believe but it varies. Say for every thousand impression for US, their’s an ecpm of over $2 while in Asia not even a dollar per thousand mille. Again its on per impression not uniques and i believe me getting 60,000 pageviews and about 40,000 on US traffic, is fair! Let’s see how far this thing will go!

Widgetsucks gives a free $25 on signup but again the thrill is that you have to make $25 more to be into the minimum of $50 payout. Most newbies tend to be attracted with free signups but never managed to get into cashing it out.

Question And Asshole Round 2

by Melvin · Nov 26, 2008

I have been all too stucked w/doing a system for a certain company w/my friends and I don’t have any choice but to do the mainstream q and a… Again you can ask this and that and this and that. Basically all questions can be asked but if I dont feel to answer that one then I will not! Best question would net $10 again and 2 others will get a free month long link worth $5…

So fire away/…

Why Some People Get Affiliate Referrals So Easy

by Melvin · Nov 23, 2008

Most of you here are bloggers and when you started months ago or even until today you place some affiliate links on your blog. On the sidebar, maybe in posts or in footers/headers. But well to be honest, I’m sure we’re all not getting the referrals we thought we could get when we were starting out. The truth about it is that you will really get low conversions on referrals and thats the bitter truth about it. People nowadays, because of information overload or maybe what you can call it, have become skeptic on things like these. Not so long ago you can do a review of something w/your affiliate link and have people jump on the bandwagon immediately. But then its different now.

Saying it doesn’t mean you can’t do anything about it. 🙂 Of course there are ways to increase affiliate earnings from your blog. This is different so to speak with the whole affiliate marketing but I believe affiliate links on blogs can itself buy you a shirt and shoes every month. W/o further adieu, here are the tips:

Don’t make them sign, if you yourself haven’t made money w/it. – this is mostly the case a lot of people don’t get. Ok they’ve read this program pays $10 per signup, then they sign w/it, promote the program itself and say to their readers “this program is great and you should try” but the real reason is that it gets them $10 which I feel is cheap. I believe if you can show people your account or how you’ve fared w/them, then you can more likely encourage them to sign up under you. Like here, you’ve seen me made some posts w/pepperjamnetwork. Apart from me getting nearly $20 on every posts of it, is that I really make money w/them even outside this blog( and bigger amount). They’ve had some nice dating offers and I had a lot of campaigns w/them before so I promote them. Show proofs!
Have a Nice Rep First – As I’ve said earlier, its hard to make tons referrals from blogs. But make no mistake w/guys like Zac Johnson and some other big affiliate bloggers. I mean Zac is earning a thousand dollars from affiliate earnings from his blog alone! Why? Because he’s a super affiliate! Its the human psychology that when they see someone making a lot with something, they tend to think that hopefully they can too w/the same program the person is using. And I believe Zac uses a lot of affiliate networks to make a living so just guess how many people signs on almost all program under him. Again it helps for you to have a great rep first.
Be transparent and honest – Wth my ancient post about whether you are signing under aff.links or not, I mentioned that if it really gives out value, then I signed through the link. I mean the guy who showed me that must be compensated for the thing right? Most people want to cloak links, mask them and try to look it natural. But I got to differ. I am a big believer that people don’t care if its an affiliate link or not. Some bloggers even say, that the certain link is an affiliate link. If you have the former 2 things mentioned above, I dont see the need for not being transparent.

This blog hasn’t really made thousands of affiliate referrals every month. But then for me to see it makes hundreds and see people saying “I will sign under you” is something that makes me feel well. Not all that worked for me will work for them and I know by being too good to be true and to honest w/my posts, they understand it well.

Blogger Head To Head Round 4; It’s The Kids, This Time

by Melvin · Nov 19, 2008

Not really I am a big fan of long titles but well the part 4 of the blogger head to head has already come. This time the kids teenagers will take the centerstage. Not only they are young kids, but they are young and competitive boys out there who are not afraid with jumping into the online world. Rajaie is a guy from Rajaietalks which I believe has taken his blog into the next level w/his killer posts as well as hardcore tactics to increase his backlinks and gain readers as well. Ganesh on the flipside, from Blogsmartly is as impressive. He’s been busy w/school now but his presence is always felt with his comments and useful insights.

Anyway enough with the praises from me and let’s jump to their interesting tack on things.

	Rajaie	Ganesh
Describe yourself in less than 5 words?	Humble, Friendly, Adventurous, and Outgoing	studious kid with a taste for books and computers.
What is your favorite breakfast?	Some eggs, bacon, sausages, and waffles. On normal days I like to have some	Idly and Sambar (its the common breakfast in South India)
Why did you choose a saturated niche?	At the time I started blogging, I didn’t have the slightest clue of what a niche was! Hehe, but I could say that I chose this niche because I enjoy blogging about it	There were so many blogs giving blogging tips. But most of them wrote and re-wrote the same old content. I wanted to start a blog that gave smart tips on how to blog. I wanted to write content which would really be useful to the readers.
Any story behind choosing that domain name?	To be honest, I actually forgot why I chose www.rajaietalks.com for my blog. I guess it had something to do with me just talking about anything I had in mind.	I wanted a domain that instantly made it clear to the visitor that this wasn’t just any ordinary blog. 😉
How many uniques are you getting monthly?	It varies between every month. In September, I got over 60,000 uniques, but last month I got about 6,000+.	Around 500.
How many hours do you spend with it?	I actually spend hours and hours a day online, but less than 2 hours blogging. I’ve been trying to focus on my blog mostly these past few weeks, but I always seem to be distracted by other things online.	When I first started blogging, I used to spend long hours. Now, I usually spend 2-3 hours everyday blogging.
Do you read other blogs feeds? How many do you track?	Of course! 🙂 About fifteen or so, I try to keep it to a minimum so I don’t spend too much time reading other blogs instead of doing actual work.	I don’t use the feed reader. I prefer receiving updates via email. I subscribe to around 10-15 blogs.
How do you split your time with school and blogging and being a son?	Ahhh, this is a hard one. I try my best to finish my studies and homework before surfing the Internet. But no matter how hard I try to finish early, it just seems as though there is never enough time on my hands!	Ah! That’s a bit difficult. Since school and studies take up almost 12 hours daily, I usually spend 3 hours in the evenings and 1 hour in the morning for my blogs. As for my other activities like playing sports, games, reading, etc. I do them on weekends.
Any other ventures aside from blogging?	No, not the moment. But once I can figure out a schedule that will help me maintain my blog and keep up with life, I am planning on jumping into affiliate marketing, site flipping, and whatever else I seem to find interesting	I’m currently exploring microblogging sites like twitter and plurk. I’m planning on building sites that aren’t as time-consuming as blogging.
What makes your blog unique from others?	It’s written by me	I really put a lot of work and planning into my posts, so I guess I write unique (and perhaps enjoyable) posts. And there’s also the fact that I’m 14 which creates some buzz around the blogosphere.
What’s the biggest goal for this blog?	To become one of the top “make money online” blogs that actually teaches its readers how to make money online	I want to build up a large subscriber base and provide useful and top-notch content for all of my readers. That’s my biggest goal.
Give me a blog you admire and why?	Copyblogger. I simply love it because of the awesome style of writing Brian and the other authors have	ProBlogger. Because Darren gives some of the best tips on blogging and his blog shows that it is possible to make a living out of blogging. His blog was a big inspiration for me to start Blog Smartly.

Make More Money This Christmas

by Melvin · Nov 14, 2008

With just about 40+ days before Christmas, I know some of you are now starting to save and try to earn more money for the holiday. I’m sure we have a lot of things to buy, and gift give to this Christmas. As December comes in, I expect the malls here in the Philippines to give massive discounts on some gadgets and shirts and every gift related to Christmas. Of course, I also do expect it to be saturated quickly as people are extremely fast especially with discounted items.

Like you, I have also 1 million reasons to make more money now. Gifts for my family, foods for the holidays, date with the girl I care, and of course stuffs to buy for myself. Right now I am really working hard in it because I was close to zero (my debit card and paypal) when November started. Anyway, today I will unveil the things I do to make more money for myself this Christmas. Be sure to give out your own tips to me too. 🙂

Holiday Offers (Affiliate Marketing) – as all of you know, affiliate marketing is my bread and butter. Although it seems like I always lose big money every time I try to grow my campaigns, I always keep on trying. Look holiday-related offers from your network and be sure to take good advantage of them. I have purchased up several domains as well as sites just specifically for the Christmas season.
Catching up with the Minimum Payout – Well yesterday I do a quick roundup of sites/networks that I have seemed to forgot that I am using. I have found out I have $47 on my WidgetBucks account and $44 on Clickbooth (sites that both have a minimum payout of $50). I have moved some of my campaigns from Copeac to Clickbooth just to make it pass the minimum or better to get over $100. I also still have some unpaid revenue from Popuptraffic.com but they don’t seem to respond to my emails (I’m close to filing a legal case to them)
Forum Posting – Again, this is what I turned into during the days i need startup income. I have a four hour internet class during Saturdays and I believe the only time we take to discuss and do machine problems is 2 hours. If you type as quick as me you can immediately make $20 an hour with it. Head on to forumsfirst now to try your luck w/it.
Save Money Offline – Well again this is the hardest part I am doing right now. I used to spend more than what my parents give me so this is really a tough challenge. But well I did have 3 ft coin bank in which I started filling it out w/$0.3 – $1 a day since October. I hope to get surprised when I open it this December.
Firing people – LOL. Well I do have some writers for my other blog and some coders and some psd creators. Because God doesn’t bless me w/those talents, I have to outsource and hire. They are compensated based on what my certain site makes for a month. Now I am firing them all and is planning to retain them early next year. Hope to save some moolah then! 😉

Again these are what I am doing to make more money this holiday, I hope I gave some ideas that could be well-pondering for anyone. Like what I’ve said, I’m interested to know your take w/it and give your own ways too. Maybe I can do it too! 🙂

Making Noise With Zip And Email Submits

by Melvin · Nov 8, 2008

LOL… I got tired of titles with “make money online” phrase types so lets use a different one. So probably a lot of you mostly kids have never ever made a thought of jumping into affiliate marketing because of its big risk. Well I don’t want to do it too before and I just kinda started because I think I have earned about $450-$600 online then with different methods so basically I just had the startup income.

As days pass by and more and more people are jumping w/making money online, some people can say that it became more competitive and saturated as well and no doubt its true. But I can say that it has become a lot easier nowadays. Just look at email and zip submits. There are offers paying $7+ for an email and while $7 is not that big, its certainly huge for an email. The great thing about promoting zip and email submits is the fact that its a low risk type. Maybe you couldn’t make 20 million in a year w/it but certainly it doesn’t take much effort on how to do it. And also there are a lot of instructions there that I have read and I believe has done a great job of really teaching people how to do it. Anyway here’s a screen shot of how I did it with Copeac(It’s not a big amount, anyway…)

If you’re out trying to learn the circles of affiliate marketing then try email and zip submits. I mean a lot of advertisers and affiliate companies are slowly embracing it and wherever you go there’s always this type of offer. But anyway Im using Copeac with it and well there’s no harm on trying their network. 🙂