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The Polluted Make Money Online Niche

by Melvin · Jul 20, 2008

blog pollution Well I was looking over at 45n5 top 100 make money online blogs and have seen my blog already there in the top 300. I also have seen some of my friends blog already there. I always had a thought that everyone nowadays or even as early as last year is trying to get into the make money online niche. Almost every minute there are new “make money online” blogs springing over and over. I can so much say that that this niche is like a river full of feces garbage and craps.

People are jumping into this niche because they are thinking that creating a make money online blog (or something similar) will make them money. That alone can summarize they are so wrong on doing and believing on it. Make money online blogs are blogs that help people make money maybe online or from other sources. Most bloggers nowadays think that because they have this kind of blog they can make money from it easily. Naah! That’s why I always have the feeling that people want to create a blog like those because they want their readers to help them make money while in truth, they should be helping the readers! MMO blogs are so many nowadays, like the rapist on every corner of the street. And I have listed here why it is so much polluted.

Make MMO and you’ll get tons of comments. Now this is what I think in general. It’s a proof because most people who do this are always looking for blogs to comment and they do it on a lot of blogs. i’m not saying it’s wrong, but you see it’s just a proof that this niche has a lot of spammers bloggers. Just take a great look at my basketball blog, most of the comments there are just under 10 and that’s because there aren’t a lot of people interested on reading basketball blogs.
The top 100 list. Remember 45n5 top list? Well no offense but I can say that most blogs there in the list are a crap (I’m not saying mine is better). Most blogs there are just full of anchor links that spam Google and some are just made for affiliate links and so. The list only shows how many people are egging to jump into it.
Do not promote it. and you will still get pageviews. it’s just like in the first one. People are always looking for something that can boost their blog’s exposure and it’s exactly it.
Ever increasing scammers. Well as these make money online blogs occur, so as the advertising networks who are promising to overdeliver and overpay only to suck at the end. Everyday I always get about 2-5 emails through the contact form on my blog suggesting me to use their services and I will earn a lot. Are they scam? Perhaps! But the thing is most newbie will just jump to it not knowing they are still untested and will later whine for not being payed.

As I have said before the numbers would easily quadruple for the succeeding years. But is it a problem? Heck No! Some really make good chunk of money from it! It’s just a proof that while the mmo niche is gettin polluted and competitive, it’s also getting to be milked easier as you no longer need to promote it very hard as bloggers will find you. But then is it enough to make a good chunk of money from your blog? Are you also polluting the niche? Maybe it’s worth to rethink after all,

How To Make Money Offline

by Melvin · Jul 18, 2008

Making money online has never been so kind to you. So what to do now? Actually there are million of things and ideas that you can do to make money offline. Yes, actually these are ideas that a student or literally anyone can apply. If the online world is cruel to you, then why bother? Switch! Many people are so wrong on thinking that their time will come. My goodness, if this field isn’t for you then pack your things and go. So how can you make money offline? Well it’s up on your skills. But here I am going to specify how a college student like me who is handsome slightly lazy can be able to do it so easy. Actually it depends on your skills really.

Do your classmates project. This is probably my favorite thing to do. This trimester we have a subject entitled Web Programming. We are using Visual Web Developer to make login pages and database. So this one happened just recently. The professor told us that the major exam will not be written. We just need to pass a .aspx website with login and register and masterpages and thats it. What happened? Sadly, most of the people on the other class do not have the software and some of them do not have an idea on how to do it. So here we come, we start offering our services and later charging $$$.
Buy and sell. Another thing that can easily be done by everyone. Actually for me, it is very easy to pretend what I am selling is very expensive yet it’s not! You might earn not so much, but then you have literally done nothing to get the job done.
Deposit your money. Last year upon the arrival of my WidgetBucks check, I have asked top personnels and some forums on what’s the best thing to do with it. Most say, reinvest it! Others tell you should keep on learning. What caught my attention was Shoemoney’s response via twitter saying “Put it in bank and sit on it’s interest”. This is true. You will do nothing and let money flowing. I know most of you do it the more hardcore way.

Making money offline is like a “lost art”. When the dot com boom started, it seems like everyone just jumped into it and forgot that there’s so much real business offline. I know you, as a reader understands my point. So maybe you can share me your own tips on making some cash offline? 😉

The Shoemoney Shirt

by Melvin · Jul 17, 2008

Well Jeremy Schoemaker held a contest in his blog wherein one per day will win a shoemoney shirt and will be shipped to the winners house for free. Know what? I have been dying to have a shirt of him. Actually I love shirts the promote prizes, remember wtw shirt? Yes that’s true. Actually I had visited his Shoemoney store and have seen the shirt is not available for shipping outside US and Canada. Also I have looked at Ebay and didn’t find it either. Basically it’s hard to buy his shirt when you’re in Asia so I felt this is the best way I can get one and for free! 🙂

Right now, I am aggressively trolling commenting at every post. Wish me Good Luck.. 😉

Why Pepperjam Worths A Look

by Melvin · Jul 15, 2008

Update: As many people still ask me so I will now say it again. The $10 signup bonus is extended until August so hurry now and sign w/pepperjam under me…

PepperJam Network is an affiliate network by affiliate marketers themselves. One thing that got into my mind was this is interesting and worths a look.. Well I have joined pepperjam network early this February and have made earnings from them all through out.

pepperjam

As you can see I’m not a super affiliate, not even a good affiliate. But heck for a small person like me, earning $40 onwards a month on a single affiliate program really helps a lot. Well back to the PepperJam, they are using web 2.0 in terms of all. They call themselves “the next generation affiliate marketing” because they offer industry leading SID-level tracking and reporting – this robust technology is especially beneficial to search marketing and sophisticated super affiliates that want to take advantage of the most up-to-date technology available to track at the keyword level. The interface looks so much nice. Another thing I have liked is the PepperJam Chat (any other aff.program that has it?) There was one time I was making gold on a dating merchant there, then all of a sudden it drastically goes down. I have had chat with the merchant himself and he said they have changed some of the terms. You see, this is a feature that is very important. Being able to talk with the merchants themselves. You can certainly ask all questions you would like.

They have hundreds of merchants and more probably it will increase more. The thing here is just to focus on you’re market and then target your potential customers. So, if it’s still not enough for you then this might change your mind. Pepperjam and I (and some affiliates) had a great partnership. Everyone who will sign under us will get a $10 sign up bonus. This means you may not get this one if you directly there. 😉 If you still had any doubts then you can ask your questions in the comments section.
Pepperjam Network is Now Offering a $10 Affiliate Sign On Bonus. Join Today.

Blogote vs TechTreak, Clash of Two Tech Blogs

by Melvin · Jul 12, 2008

So today it is going to be the technology blogs turn to face each other in this week’s featured ‘Blogger Head to Head”. Technology blogs are blogs that blog about technology. Well, that was before. Now, technology blogs tend to expand their reach. As the technology expands it’s channels, so as the blogs. Just take a good look at techcrunch.

For this week, it’s going to be Blogote and TechTreak. Honestly I have a difficult time remembering (pronouncing) their names but hopefully I can get over this hump. Blogote is a blog that I have visiitng since months ago while Techtreak has also a great one which I am reading lately. Here are the questions I fired to their faces. 😉

	TechTreak	Blogote
Describe yourself in less than 5 words?	crazy, Contest(too many to say) freak, helper, smart, geek	Indifferent,Simply and Smart! 😉
What is your favorite breakfast?	Almost all indian foods	Bread butter Jam 🙂
Any story behind choosing that domain name?	Me and my brother just wanted to have a tech blog so we just searched through godaddy but all the good ones are booked then my brother came up with TechTreak(we still dont know what treak is ) and we took it, at first it is a bit tough to remember but after some weeks we just getting good response and we made it so far!	yes, Blog + promote = Blogote
Why did you choose the technology niche?	Coz am a big tech freak and just wanna try the lastest gadgets so it will be fun to blog about them!	Tech is a part of life,So experiencing the Tech and writing about it is not a tough task.
How many hours per day do you spend blogging?	Almost 3 to 4 hours but in busy day i cant blog for even 4 days	Not even 1 hour 🙁
How many uniques are you getting monthly?	14000 before 3 months stats but now due to some personal(father expired) problems i just stopped everything and now started to get on the track back(its really hard)!	First month I received 16k+ http://blogote.com/2008/site-news/blogote-june-2008-monthly-wrap-up.html
What is your average blog income?	around $800 before 3 months but now just $250 due to bad days!	This is the beginning.. I will post about them in the coming months!
Do you read other blogs feeds? How many do you track?	Yeah i love to read others! i have more than 50+	No I dont read blog feeds.I do visit some of my friends blog to pass my time.
What keeps a blogger from making money from his blog?	Content + Traffic + Good Circle and with good management!	Motivation and discouragement..These two things make a blogger reach any of his goals.
When does a blogger have to consider monetizing	While having a great content, traffic and decent link love	After writing first 10-20 posts,he has to find out his niche and then Quality seo readable posts will do the job.Also submission to social sites is recommended for every blogger.
What makes your blog unique from others?	Style in posts, good design(some self made ), covers almost all interesting stuff like mixed juice!	I have No answer,I cant say if my blog is really unique bcoz Blogote is yet to be discovered and nourished.
What’s the biggest goal for this blog?	ha…biggest!? almost every month is a sucessfull month for TechTreak coz as a contest freak i try to get on as much as possible and try to make most of my content with a better traffic each month so it just going to increasing! But to the most hardest part i ever faced is face off with johnchows blog review, i dont know about johnchow that much untill then, when i seen him in a RuffPC(worth $3000) contest, that is the month i tried to make most of my blog to get nore votes and win but with both our votes euqual the whole contest rules and schedules are changed because of us but sadly i lost it and it still hurts(i even cant says that tons of xxxxxx comments i got from a month from JC fans) me the most! but the only hope is one day i’ll be there to break the chains!!!	For now it is to break the traffic shackles obviously to be the best blog with quality content.
Give me a blog you admire and why?	Problogger.net since in the beginning i learnt a lot from darren	I don’t admire any blogs,why to admire a blog when you have the capability to blog better than others..

How To Get That Advertising

by Melvin · Jul 10, 2008

Disclaimer: This is an article based on my experiences and wouldn’t guarantee anything on your part. People do things differently and I can say this is what worked best for me all throughout.

So I was being asked by my friends on schools on how did I get that many ads on my site while my site is new and unpopular? I told them “I just flaunt with advertisers”. That statement though, is just 1/4 behind the real thing about selling ads on your site. Many blogs have struggled immensely on finding advertisers on their blogs. The truth is you would really struggle! I know most people doing selling are new and unestablished blogs. Selling the spot is really hard especially when you’re content is a little out of place. So I have written here some thoughts on how to get advertisers for your blog (preferably for new blogs):

Putting affiliate links – It’s a rule of thumb that when your blog is new, then just try placing affiliate links there! It’s good and bad on some point, let me explain what I think. When affiliate ads are placed on your site, advertisers will come to think that spots are full and/or it would give them an ugly impression and will ask themselves “What am I getting here being the first one to advertise?” Obviously that’s a great point. When there’s only one advertiser on your part, make sure he’ll feel special because he’s the only ONE! It’s ok to put affiliate links as long as in moderation. For example in my blog, the only affiliate banner there is sponsored reviews and revresponse at the links part.
Sell yourself cheap! – This is always an issue on whether you are going to sell your blog’s space for cheap or not. Actually I pretty much believe starting out low is good, why? Because people love cheap prices? There are tons of people in digital point looking for super cheap advertising. If you are selling $20 on a banner and only getting 1 advertiser per 2 month, then why not sell it for $5 and get 4 in a month?
Show your booty hole what you’ve got. – This is one of the biggest misconceptions of people/bloggers. They tend to create an advertising page, then feel lazy and then just rush it. BIG mistake! Just saying you’re getting 1000 uniques a day is not enough. People look for proofs, they look for informations, they look for pictures. Showing it, makes people expect what they can get for a very cheap advertising. It also builds a good reputation around the blogosphere. Tell them your uniques, alexa, technorati, serp, countries where visitors originated, such those things. Maybe like this advertising page 😉
Contact them – This is common nowadays because it’s very effective. Most bloggers look for other blogs advertisers and contact them directly offering advertising. What I have learned here is that you have to be keen and logical. You cannot look at Shoemoney’s blog and then contact Clickbooth and asking them to advertise. Just look on how the advertisers are targeting channels. Some target niche blogs, some do target blogging tips blogs and so. Example here in my blog is the Blogriffic advertisement. I have seen that advertisement on some small blogs around the blogosphere. From that point, you can see that this is an advertiser willing to take advertising on small blogs and not on risky and costly ones. After that I contact Salwa and offered him her my advertising page and she said she would. That easy!
Get a great theme – This one is a no brainer. You don’t expect to handle ads with a Kubrick Theme. Heck this one is so easy as there are so many many many themes compatible with block ads and others.

Again this is what I have used for the past few years and have found it effective for me. You may not agree with me at some point but I am sure some of this are self-explanatory. If we are different in thoughts here, then how do you do advertising on you’re part?

Providing Something, That’s What People Love

by Melvin · Jul 9, 2008

So I don’t really know if I can still compete to the blogging Idol. I would be entering the busiest week of this month. If you aren’t subscribed to my feed then consider subscribing now! 😉

Most people are thinking “how can I make my site popular?” And I admit, this is something that everyone of us wants but only few can have it. You see all the tips everywhere on how to run a blog and get tons of traffic and readers and how to promote and so. But the truth is, it boils down on how you make other people like your site, how you can provide them something that is useful. For this matter let’s take some examples on sites that do this one very well.

JohnChow.com – I know many are despising and hating Chow for putting so much ads on his site, for doing ten paid reviews a day, for having posts not related to making money online and more. But does it make his traffic suffer? how about the comments? Not even close! The truth about Chow’s traffic is that people enjoy him as him! I have seen many video posts of Chow and he’s very hilarious (looks very hilarious)! In this way, he provides ENTERTAINMENT for people like us. Of course, he’s still one of the more established make money online blog. But he does this with a twist! That’s what make John Chow’s blog grow!

JackBook.com – Well I am sure not many of you know this site. But I think it’s a popular one! Jacky Supit, the owner is a Malaysian blogger. Upon looking at his blog you can count on both of you’re fingers why you will not like his site so much. Plenty of ads, lack of value of posts, atrocious grammar (worse than mine), an ugly tagline of “a master of blogger”, a 728X60 advertisement at the top of his header and doing reviews about casinos! Yeah, I don’t really much comment on his site. So why there are about 50,000 people following his site? Because he provides things! He converts wordpress themes to blogger for free, he shares his hacks to blogger blogs, he let people scorn at him, he’s very generous with most people and many more. That’s because he started with Blogger and then later moved with wordpress and he’s also a good coder. To count the rate of positives over negatives is just too much. Now, no wonder why many people are subscribed to his feed.

DoshDosh.com Dosh Dosh is probably my favorite blog. It is probably one of the more super duper informative blog about many things. Blogging, Social Meda, Internet Marketing and so. With Doshdosh I know people don’t bother with the anime faces at his blog. Now think if someone unpopular do this tactic. I’m sure people would question it and scorn at it. Also Dosh Dosh has also decreased his posting frequency. I think he’s just posting two to three times a week! Does it affect his traffic? No! Because every single post there is marked with educational and proven tips and techniques (in a formal language) that we could surely apply.

You see, these blogs are blogs that other people can easily think the reverse way what we (I) think of them. But because they have overdelivered with something that is beneficial to us, readers, they remained to be at the top of their niche. At the end it’s not important, how your site looks like, how you hide your privacy too much and even where you came from! It boils down to how you can greatly affect the society, and that is what people will follow!

You and you’re blog, what do you provide to the society? Do you just do it in hopes that you’ll make money from it sooner than later? Or you really have a genuine intention of providing something?