This is a paid review sponsored by James of Shetoldme.com
Social bookmarking sites are literally everywhere. You find a lot of good ones, and even a bigger number of “not-so” pleasing ones. Of course, popular social sites are the better ones because bloggers know themselves they can get more traffic with it. It can give their blog a brand awareness in front of a huge number of audience.
But what if you could also earn while trying to drive the most traffic you can to your blog? What if you could place more than 1 ad that would earn you inside a high traffic subpage? Well enough fluffs, what I am talking about here is the Social Bookmarking site She Told Me, a social bookmarking site that could help you earn using Google Adsense. Here’s a small portion of what the site looks like:
When James ordered this review and when I quickly saw the link, I was like ‘oh, this is another crappy site and I may not accept this review”. But then I went to the site and was flabbergasted by the amount of traffic it renders. Another is that it gives the best posts a direct link (dofollow) back to the blog instead of a subpage which would later direct people to the blog. In my opinion, it’s a good thing since most people don’t have really time to scan and scan pages, and later get redirected to a different site.
So to the adsense thing. Basically it all starts by putting your publisher id in your account details. Then, when you add a post to the site, your adsense account would be the one catering the ad in that page. What specific ad? Your adsense ad would be the one placed closest to the title (and according the the owner, the one with highest CTR).
So imagine, you submitted a good post. Your page went to the front page and you get the most traffic. And at the back end, there’s also a good chance for you to get as much click as possible for your ad. SheToldMe.com has an Alexa Rank of below 50,000 so that’s a pretty reasonable amount of traffic to deal with. Just to clear things off, Adsense Sharing is not against Google Terms of Services. For more info read their Program Policies here.
Now is their referral system. The lucrative part according to them is that your ad would be displayed on every pages your referred user submits. So that’s more than doubling the income potential if the one user you referred is a quality user who submits good content. Now imagine having referred 10 of them. 🙂 For more information, there’s a page solely dedicated to the Revenue sharing part of the site
Critiques and Suggestions
Well let’s go to the “bad” side. The first thing that didn’t go well with me was the domain name. Sure, digg, sphinn, del.ic.ous, are not really premium ones but i think the owner could’ve had picked a better one. Again its entirely my opinion that the domain doesn’t really suit the sites’ function that much.
Another probably is the design. Most bookmarking sites are Web 2.0ish in looks and shetoldme prefers not to be one of them. It’s understandable since the site is an adsense sharing site (w/c means it would serve a TON of adsense ads) and needs a big space to cater those ads. The logo is related to the domain but again I am quite puzzled with the domain and so as the logo. Aside from Adsense, the site also serves Project Wonderful ads although its very minimal. I really wish a more stylish design for the social site as it’s been time proven that attractive design is a MAJOR bait to attract users.
FINAL VERDICT
So if you guys would ask me if I would use that program, the answer is definitely yes! It’s free, takes 30 seconds to register and get approved, and just like any other bookmarking sites, it can yield traffic and quality links to your blog. The Adsense thing is not something I’m really interested with (I’m long banned from Adsense), but let alone the bookmarking capabilities judge for it.
And what is its difference from the bigger bookmarking sites? None! Well for me, I would always prefer to submit to smaller social sites because it doesn’t really take that much work to go up in the front page rather than with bigger social sites.. There is a considerable difference between the traffic but I would rather want to get some than totally none at all (due to the fact that it’s harder to get in the front page of popular social sites like digg…).
All in all Shetoldme.com is a pretty decent social bookmarking site coupled with the lucrative option of earning money from Adsense Ads. Joining is free and you could start earning soon. Still, DON’T expect too much from it, money wise. Over the years, I’ve seen a ton of Adsense revenue sharing sites, mostly forums and all I can say is that 80% of the time, people’s expectations weren’t met. Again it’s a pretty good site and definitely something that “might” worth a look. Check out She Told Me
i’m really interested with this kind of thing..
but my question: is it violating adsense TOS to use this system by putting publisher id in the account details? I know this system also offered by Digitalpoint forums. if this doesn’t violate TOS of adsense, it would be great!
.-= mytheory´s last blog ..Setting Target to your Blog is necessary =-.
Melvin Reply:
October 22nd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
It’s not. Google didn’t have anything in their TOS stating it’s illegal and yea in fact it’s been used since I think 5 years back.
taranfx Reply:
October 24th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
They Badly need to have Web 2.0
After all it’s not Hard!
.-= taranfx´s last blog ..[How to] Install Windows 7, XP using USB =-.
taranfx Reply:
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:04 pm
SheToldMe gets negligible traffic. Is there any better one?
.-= taranfx´s last blog ..Install Snow Leopard on PC [using USB] =-.
i had joined that site 2 months back and bookmarked many links and stopped now.
Believe it or not Melvin but now people are giving equal importance to web 2.0 and social bookmarking websites.
Interesting to see that if you will be able to handle it quite well than your SERP can also increase.
We have personal experience with this one.
.-= SW@Social Bookmarking Service´s last blog ..Social Bookmarking Service =-.
I have signed up for the site 2 month ago. But now when I visit it, it shows
”
Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
”
Why is that? Is it only fault by my side? Are you able to open She Told Me?
.-= Agent 001´s last blog ..Upgrade to WordPress 2.8.5 and Check Out the Upcoming WordPress 2.9 Beta Version =-.
Melvin Reply:
October 24th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
its totally working.. Try to clear the cache of your browser and then try again
Penny Stocks Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 9:50 am
heyyyy yes i too got this following Error while opening that site :-
—————
Forbidden
Bla Bla bla
—————
well this is not a good thing for the site owner
Interesting review Melvin. I’m going know to check them out…
.-= Forest´s last blog ..Michelle Motivated Monday: The Keativ Blogger Award and My Famous Blogger Club Interview =-.
I like I know “She Told Me” !
I think the author once commented in my blog.. wow.. I don’t know there is such a thing behind this.. let me check it ! Thanks for sharing Melvin ! 🙂
.-= S.Pradeep Kumar´s last blog ..Movies Based On Robotics And Machines =-.
Looks like a nice site. I will check it out.
Regarding review, I agree with you. She Told Me is not a good domain for such a site. I like the simple design and may join the site.
.-= Mr. I´s last blog ..10 Things They Don’t Teach You About Productivity =-.
i have an account at she Told Me, Earning too low 🙁 🙁
.-= Anish K.S´s last blog ..‘Slumdog Crorepati’ On Sunday 25 October 2009 At 1.00 P.M Only on MAX =-.
I am a new blogger, and have been researching was to reach a wider audience.
The thing is, I’m not interested in money, I have more altruistic goals. I’m just curious if I should use the same techniques to try and reach people, or if it will undermine me somehow ?
Basically, I’m a costumed crime fighter, and I’m keeping an online journal. My goals are deeper than just preventing/interfering with crime, I also want to fight apathy, inspire people with my courage and righteousness.
By putting the welfare of society ahead of my own personal safety, I’m hoping to reach people and show them that the world is sick, and we have a duty to try and heal it.
Anyway, I was wondering if you might have any suggestions about how to connect to people ? I’m not really a marketeer, but I do have a message.
Thank you,
Captain Australia
Thats a pretty good concept, when I am ready to monetize I will have to give this a shot.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..Best Tanning Salon in Florida =-.
Looks like a cool site, and that was a really good review Melvin, covered all the right points!
I’m definately going to give it a go. Like you say I probably won’t earn that much money, but at the moment I’m just looking to promote my site so the links are enough 😛
.-= Simon | Teenius´s last blog ..Why Relaunching Your Blog Is Awesome! =-.
Lets see how far this revenue sharing trick take them.
.-= SW@Social Bookmarking Service´s last blog ..Social Bookmarking Service =-.