Income Generation From the Internet

Do you want to earn extra income without leaving home? Do you want to do it the easy way? Then you may very well earn it directly from the internet, like thousands of other people do! Read on and learn how to start earning without investing any money. 

You must understand that what I am about to share with you is not a career within itself, but rather a sort of income generator(s) during your luxury time – yes, your luxury time. What you will soon learn to earn should be enough to pay a few of your bills, but it doesn’t have to end there, you could definitely earn more than that. Also, earning a steady amount of extra income takes time to build. But once it has started, it would become much easier for you. This article is intended to teach you how to start up..

Now if you are ready to start earning some extra cash, brace yourself and be amazed how simple it is.

Getting started
First off, you should have an online banking account. It’s not actually a bank but a somewhat a form of digital online repository for your money. Now, you have to sign up in either one, or both of the following. You have the choice but I suggest that you sign up for both (after all, they’re both FREE!) because you would be receiving your payments on both.

Create a Paypal Account
Paypal is an online money transfer handler. They process payments through the internet without letting anyone know about your personal information. It is important to have an account on this site because some potential income generators could only pay you through Paypal. To start off, go to the Paypal website (www.paypal.com). Click the sign up link on the upper right side of their home page. Choose the ‘Personal Account’ option and choose the country where you currently reside. Click the continue button to proceed. Fill in all the necessary fields. Be honest about every detail. Paypal has the right to shut down your account when you have been found to give fraudulent personal information. Also, once you have started being paid, Paypal will use that information to send you your money. So be careful in entering information on the blank fields. A confirmation e-mail will be sent on your e-mail account. Click the confirmation link and then log on to your Paypal account. That’s it for Paypal.

Create an E-gold Account
E-gold is a little different from Paypal. It is somewhat an investment site where your income is automatically invested on gold (that’s why it’s ‘e-gold’ – electronic gold). You can read the FAQ on their site for further reading. Log on to their site and click the ‘Create an Account’ link on the left. A page will load where you are asked to read the user agreement. Read up. Then, if you have read the agreement, and accept the terms and conditions, click accept. If not, decline. A form will load and you will have to fill them all up. The ‘Passphrase’ field will serve as your password. After submitting, a confirmation e-mail will be sent to your e-mail account. The account number given will also be your log-in number, or will stand for your username. After that, we could start sniffing for some money on the internet.

Money-making on the Internet
There are a lot of ways to earn from the internet but know this, to earn effectively, you must (MUST!) produce as many manageable income streams as you can. This May increase your chance to earn more and prevents the income flow drying up. It is also advantageous because there would be more places for you to gather information and build remote social ties – which you will need for future success.

Remember, we are in the information age, and the most important thing we’ll need is information! You just have to know where to look, who to ask and when to ask. Furthermore, do not confine yourselves on the learning you will derive from this article. Explore the net, experiment and learn!

Income Opportunities
Now, there are a lot of ways to start up, and it’s up to you. You don’t have to follow them in order. So let’s get on it.

PTCs, PTRs
PTC (Paid-to-click) and PTR (paid-to-read) sites are common on the internet. These are sites that pay their members for clicking advertisements (through ads or e-mails) from advertisers and sponsors. Usually, you are asked to click a link and stay on the page for a few seconds. Then your account on that site will be credited. Some of these sites offer points for availing advertising opportunities (we will get that part later). Now, there are a lot of scams out there so be careful in signing up and giving away your personal information. PTCs and PTRs often give very little earning for each action, so it would take time to build your earnings. Be patient and do not underestimate these sites because there is a way to boost your income and multiply it several times (to be discussed later). They will prove to you that they can play an active role on your multiple-income stream.

Listed below are prominent PTR and/or PTC sites that have proven themselves trustworthy, all of which are free to sign up to and usually pay via Paypal, but some pay via E-gold. Just check their FAQs for further information.

Donkeymail.com – this site offers to pay its members for every e-mail they read and advertisements they view. Also, they offer payment for signing up on some offers. ‘Donkey points’ can be earned by clicking advertisements that specify earning points rather than cents.
Wowearnings.com – just like Donkeymails, you will receive payments by reading e-mails and clicking on advertisements. The difference is that they pay more for signing up to special offers or to affiliate sites. However, their sign up programs are concentrated on USA, Canada and UK. But occasionally, you would find international offers.
Getpaidtonight.com – also a PTC and PTR site that has a low payout (minimum amount needed to receive payment) and payments are made within 24 hours. Reading e-mails and clicking advertisements are paid.
Jillsclickcorner.com – another PTC and PTR site that parses a stream of e-mails for you to read and advertisements to click. They also pay for special sign ups.
Makethatdollar.com – is another prominent site that offers payment for reading and clicking. They have an extensive stream of paid-to-sign-up.
Hits4pay.com – is a PTR and PTC site that is lucrative but requires approval upon signing up. Once your account is approved, you would come to realize that this site is one of the highest paying PTR or PTC out in the net.

Paid-to-sign-up
Paid-to-sign-up sites give special offers for you to complete. Once completed, your account would then be credited. Some offers require an investment, that is, you need to pay some amount to sign up for the offer. The compensation, however, is almost always more than what you’ve spent. This is not entirely necessary, but if you plan to earn well, it’s well worth the trouble. Then there is the plain paid-to-sign-up where you just have to become a member of a particular site.

The sites listed below are reputable sites that pay their active members. All of them are free to join. They pay via E-gold or Paypal.

Swatcash.com – is a paid-to-sign-up site that offers dozens of special offer and links to sites. All you have to do is complete the offers or sign up to specific sites and you get paid for it. No clicking and reading e-mails on this one.
Treasuretrooper.com – by far, one of the most popular paid-to-sign-up site on the net. Just like Swatcash, they pay for special offers and for signing up on their affiliates.
Intoffer.com – another paid-to-sign-up site that also has an extensive list of links for special offers and sign up opportunities. This site has a lot of paid international offers.

PTP (Paid-to-post)
Paid-to-post sites are usually forums or information exchange centers. All you have to do is sign up and participate actively in discussions. How do you earn? Well, that depends on the content of your post and the length. There are a wide range of topics to discuss. You usually earn faster on PTP sites than on PTCs and PTRs, but like what I’ve said: they should be part of your multiple-income streams. But unlike PTCs and PTRs, this income stream requires dedication and a little more effort than the rest. But once you have sufficient resources, you can boost your income (to be discussed later).

The sites below are well-known and reputable sites with honest administrators. You can join for free. These sites pay through Paypal.

Mylot.com – by far one of the most famous among the PTPs on the net. They offer a wide range of topics to post. The forums here are fun to participate into since they are categorized by your relative interests. You earn by posting new topics for your interests and replying to others’ posts. By spending an hour or two on Mylot, you can earn up to $40-$50 a month without putting much of an effort. Be sure to be active.
Dormcheck.com – another known PTP site. Just like Mylot, they offer payment for simply posting and replying to others’ posts. The speed of generating income on this site is almost in par with Mylot. Therefore, you may generate about the same amount on this site.
Moneytalkpro.com – this PTP site also offers to pay posts and replies. But one thing that set this site apart from other PTP sites is that the topics discussed here are often about making money on the web, how to sign up on them and how to earn more. You definitely have to joins this site.
Webmastersroom.com – one of the highest paying PTP site on the web. The payment rate is higher than other more common PTP sites and you can generate up to $80-$100 a month by spending only a few hours (after making the necessary income boosts, which is discussed later).

Others
There are still other ways to generate income and some may even open an opportunity for a permanent online career. This section will discuss such income opportunities and where to look.
Bestcashrewards.com – this site is free to join and offers to pay you for attending some online seminars that may last from 15-30 minutes. You would have to download a Video Conference Software (with VoIP) to access the seminars. This is a great opportunity for you if you are looking for a more secure means of income (a business or a career), not through Bestcashrewards.com itself, but through the seminars. The seminars are conducted by companies to offer business and career opportunities. The choice is yours. If you are to join in a business venture, you will need funds for investment.
Getafreelancer.com – this site is free to join, and with a little investment, you can get an upgrade. This site offers an extensive list of freelance jobs ranging from data entry to programming to copywriting. You have the freedom to choose with category to work on. To get a paying job, you have to post a bid on a job. The bid requires you to specify the amount you would charge and the amount of time to complete the job. If your bid was chosen, the employer would contact you and may ask for further details on how you plan to complete the job.
Zotspot.com – this is a paid-to-search site. You get paid just for using their search engine and surf the net through the links their search engine provides. It’s free to join and is hassle free.

How to Make More Progress
The rate of success on generating more income depends on your progress. Your progress consequently depends on your skills such as in gathering useful information. Like what I’ve said earlier, we are in the information age and information is a vital resource. Read on and try to remember as much as you can.

Gathering More Information
There are plenty more income opportunities on the web. Those that I’ve mentioned don’t even make a fraction of it. But how can you get the information you need to start your progress rolling? Remember that there are forum sites where you could post topics for discussions, and I’ve you’d have to know who to, where to, and when to ask. You could start on forum sites, but there are other things to do first, namely:

1. Be active. This would increase your visibility over the site.
2. Be as wholesome as possible upon creating posts and replying to posts. This would help you build your “virtual” character.
3. Try to know as many people from forum sites as you can.
4. Try to observe the relative attitude of those people you get to know. One way of doing this is to read their posts, especially those that reflect their thoughts about some specific matters. Another way is to chat with them and ask questions.
5. Try to build a good and sturdy rapport with everyone you get to know, chat or converse with. This would build your network of people that may help you in your progress.

Once you are confident with the rapport you’ve established, you may now start asking questions and gather information. It is usually best to consult to a number of people so as to increase the probability that a certain piece of information is true. Be sure to ask where to look for more information just in case. If you have been visible enough on a forum site, you can directly post your question on the spot, since a lot of people are willing to share information. You would have to sort out the information you need after that.

Another way to extract information from people is to give one, yourself. Let’s face it, some people are not so willing to give precious information for income generation. What you should do is to trade information that is not a common knowledge for everyone who partakes in forums so as to convince your would-be informant that it’s a reasonable trade. Also, you could get more information if you agree to become to become a referred member or recruit. That way, you would be able access more income opportunities and you could ask your referrer for more “information”.

Boosting Your Income
Like I’ve said earlier, there are ways to boost your income on PTCs, PTRs and PTPs. Some of the given sites even give tips on how to boost your income. It’s relatively simple. After knowing a lot of people and establishing a good rapport, you have to sign them up on PTC, PTR and PTP sites under your referral. Almost of the sites I’ve mentioned under these categories all have referral programs. Referral programs are meant to increase a site’s membership matrix, to do so, they offer commissions for referring a new recruit. The percentages of commissions and depth levels vary with every site. With sufficient referrals (and referrals from your referrals), you may generate a substantial amount of additional income.

Some PTP sites also pay you for replies you receive. So, you should try to post a topic that many people would be interested in. This would help you increase your earning as well as your rating as a member.

Upgrades (such as gold membership) are available on some sites, but most of the time, they require a small investment. If you have the means, it would be a good idea so you should go for it. You would then be given priorities over some opportunities for income and receive some benefits and special offers not normally given to members with regular accounts. 

Managing Income Streams
Multi-tasking is necessary if you are to manage your income streams effectively so as to maximize your time. To do this, I suggest that your browser must be capable of displaying web pages in tabs. Tabs are easier to manage than multiple windows. For that requirement I suggest that you use Mozilla Firefox. If you don’t like that browser, you could use IE 7 or the lower versions IE 5 or 6. For IE 5 or 6, download the yahoo toolbar for your browser to make use of the tab feature.

Upon accessing PTC and PTR sites, I suggest you open as many as you think you could manage simultaneously. Remember that these sites only want you to stay for a specified amount of time on their sites or on their sponsors’, but often only allows one active window. What you do is you open one tab for each PTC or PTR site and let the timer expire. That way, you get credited simultaneously without spending too much time sorting over these sites one by one.

To manage paid-to-sign-up sites, first you must create a template on a word processor (such as MS-Word, StarOffice, OpenOffice, etc.) that contains common required information such as your name, contact numbers, addresses and so on. This would make you work much faster and easier, and also minimize errors. Again, you could open paid-to-sign-up sites in tabs. Copy a required field from your template and paste them on the sign up fields. Move to the next tab and paste the same information on the same field for the current site. Repeat this until you no longer need to paste the same content. Copy the next field from your template and repeat the process. That way, you can complete sign up information in bulk and in a much faster rate.

PTP sites are more tedious to deal with. First, you have to categorize your interests. Try to plan ahead by creating drafts and outlines on what to post. It is a good idea that to post same topics for different PTP sites. But you should write the content a little differently from one PTP site to another. One way to do this is to create a template with some short key sentences for your post. Copy and paste to all your PTP postings and then fill in the gaps between the sentences differently. This saves you precious time, and making each post somewhat unique.

There are other ways to make your work easier, you should try to ask people you know how they make their work easier (again, that’s the benefit of data gathering).

What Next?
After earning extra income on the internet through the means I have stated, you wouldn’t want it to simply en there, right? What you want is to create more profitable income generators that are relatively easy to do. Information gathering is again, necessary at this point. Here are some leads that could help you, but gathering more information about these is entirely up to.

Advertising
Advertising is one way to earn money from the net. You just have to set them up and wait for the money to roll in. But if you think it’s that simple, try to ask the pros about it. One benefit from advertising is that it creates a residual income without putting too much work after being set up. One program you can try is the Google Adsense. It is a known advertising program, but to sign up you must have a web site on your own (but you can build some for free) and a credit card. Another thing for advertising is to create web traffic and make your visitors click on the advertisements. You get paid for unique clicks. Earn additional income whenever a product or service is purchased through your link.

Online Business Ventures
Online business is one way to earn money, but it requires more effort and dedication. You could start a small business at E-bay (you may have heard about it). As with any business, you need an investment. Then you have to set up your own virtual shop and create listings of products or services that you would be able to render. You should ask some people you know how to effectively earn from E-bay.

Earning opportunities are not limited to those that I’ve mentioned but they are good places to start. With a little patience and dedication, anyone can make the money roll in.

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In this recession-hit economy, it is very easy to think that advertising spend from individuals, businesses and corporations has dried up completely and that there is no hope for a small-time blog looking to earn some bucks from the internet. Indeed, there was a time where any old Joe Bloggs (excuse the pun) could throw up a low-value and low-key website and draw in a handful of advertisers, enough to pay for internet bills and a meal or two out every month.

Those incidences may be harder to find today, but don’t be fooled into believing that you can’t have a slice of the virtual money-making pie too. Whilst it is true that a downturned economy does mean less advertising dollars in circulation due to companies cutting back on expenses, wise individuals will continue to spend money on ads due to lower prices, still great targeting and thus a potentially higher profit margin on their spend.

As a result, it should be your aim to target these individuals and lure them in to advertising on your own blog. It must be said beforehand that you should obviously have sufficient traffic to make it worth the advertiser’s time and money, and that your traffic should be as targeted as possible to the niche you are involved in – this will make it a win/win situation for all involved. Once you have accomplished the above, then it’s time to use the following tips and techniques to make sure you grab the attention of any advertisers and to make sure you don’t lose out on your share of the pie.

1. Become an authority in your niche

In some cases, particularly when you are a rookie blogger, you will want to actively seek out advertisers and will spend hours cold-emailing prospects hoping for that influx of income.  However, this will reverse as you become more of an authority and expert within your specialised field. Yaro Starak (link: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com) strongly advocates that you take steps to become this type of guru in his membership courses, and the best way to do this is to constantly bring out fresh, linkable and likeable content that spreads by itself over the net. This will ensure that advertisers find you and not the other way round.

2. Your reputation is everything

Sure, we’ve all heard of people who lie and cheat their way to the top, but if you want to maintain your business integrity and class, then nothing pleases prospective advertisers more than honesty and a clean reputation. Make sure that you are transparent in quoting your visitor count, and make sure that ad prices are not overly inflated just to make a quick buck. Pleased as punch advertisers will generally renew adverts if they are happy with results, and maintaining your online reputation is vital in helping you create these beneficial relationships.

3. Under-quote prices and aim for retention

One of the key statistics that internet marketers who own membership websites look for in a successful business is the attrition rate. Well-run sites will have high participation rates and small percentages of members dropping out every week or month. In a similar way, a blog owner should be looking to maintain ongoing business deals and should encourage the renewal of adverts. A good way to do this is to under-quote ad prices initially so you can start building these key relationships, and then to slowly raise prices over time. Often advertisers will stick with you as you raise prices due to the close bonds you have built.

4. Create a clear advertising page on your blog

This tip if probably one of the most vital, active things you can do to raise revenue. In fact, whilst I was in charge of Blogtrepreneur, having a defined advertising page helped me to make $506 blogging in July 2007 (link: http://www.blogtrepreneur.com/2007/08/09/how-i-made-506-blogging-in-july-2007/). There are a few things that a well-structured and enticing advertising page should have in order to make the most of your screen real-estate:

• A general description of your website and the audience that you attract
• Unique visitors, pageviews and other traffic related statistics
• Twitter followers, RSS subscribers and any other relevant metrics
• Number of posts in your Archives and comment to post ratio (this shows the level of audience participation and reader loyalty)
• Methods of advertising and their descriptions, followed by pricing and timeframes
• Methods of payment
• And finally, any other terms and conditions to protect yourself should you decide to alter prices or to warn off any untoward advertisers promoting dodgy activity!

5. Give advertisers more than one method of advertising with different price points

Advertisers will inevitably vary in stature and levels of budget that they have available to spend on your blog. As a result, having only one advertising method with only one entry-level price-point, may deter some purchasers and means that you are putting your eggs all in one basket. You could start by offering 2 types of banner advert (perhaps one in the sidebar and a larger banner at the end of each post) and by offering RSS feed links. You should however be wary of selling text links as Google does not look favourable upon these and the money you get from this may not outweigh the penalties you will get from the search engines and traffic lost as a result.

6. Communication is King

OK, so I’ve twisted the above statement a little from the original “Content is King” mantra. However as mentioned above with the transparency point, constant communication will mean peace-of-mind for the advertiser and will lead to deeper relationships developing. Make sure that you are prompt in responding to emails and that you act courteously and professionally at all times. Provide a contact form on your blog or a place where potential advertisers can get in touch with you and it should show that you are a full-on businessman, which will help money-spenders to help take you more seriously.

7. Be proactive

There is nothing worse than a beach-bum-blogger who thinks that no effort is required in running a successful blog. Whilst a very small minority can safely say that advertisers have contacted them and that they have a smooth automated system for handling everything, chances are you won’t have that luxury and instead will have to kick your blogging butt into gear.

Spend time cold-emailing prospects if you have spare inventory, offer advertising deals for bulk-purchases, offer discounts for multi-month buys, maintain a network of interested individuals who you can contact about new deals and be on your toes. Passive income is not something generally related to blogging and you may find yourself doing behind the scenes work more than you are actually typing!

The key to cracking open the money tree is to keep looking for improvement, as there is always improvement to be had. Never settle for the current level of income you are receiving, and if you are currently making a loss blogging (by paying authors and shelling out on expenses) then create a leaner blogging business and use the above tips to help you to find your break-even point and to shove your blog back into the black.

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The contests section on Digital Point Forums is where I recommend doing this.

If you’ve never started a logo contest and you are in need cheap good looking logos then it’s something I highly recommend (unless you can make them yourself or decide you want to learn that skill of course). Looking down the Digital Point contest forum there many contest holders offing similar prize money but some contests seem to get more and better quality entries than others despite the same prize money on offer. Why? Because some of the contest holders don’t give enough information in their description for what they are looking for.

Essential Instructions to Include in Your Logo Contest:

• Size of the image in Pixels (e.g. 925 x 150)
• What it needs to say. Clarify whether you want some bigger writing as a title and smaller writing as a slogan.
• The style you want.

You may have no idea of what you would call the style you are imagining or you may not even be imagining a style, but if you are launching a new blog (or re-designing an old one) you must have a good idea of what kind of readers your blog will cater too.

A few questions to think about when describing what style you want

• Should it have a modern and slick cutting-edge look?
• Should it be big and fun or more serious?
• Should it contain images and if so what of?

I also find it useful to say something like “feel free to be creative”, which helps designers not worry about you thinking their design is wacky and also encourages more to take part as its more fun for them if they feel free to be creative with their work.

The one vital piece of information to go in in the title of your contest is how much money you are offering as prize money or you will find yourself with considerably less designers even visiting your contest page at all, yet alone entering a design.

If the rest of your site is set up in terms of colour schemes then you can provide a link to it in the contest and ask for the colours to match those already on the site.

It’s easy to feel like the longer instructions you write the less entries you get, but it its about quality not quantity. If someone cant be bothered to read your instructions they probably wont take much time over the logo.

If you don’t want to wait forever (who does!) then something like “quick entries greatly appreciated!” in the content of your post is effective. It’s not worth playing games saying “need urgently contest will close in 24 hours” to try and push designers to enter your contest, it doesn’t work.

Generally speaking if you follow these instructions and offer a reasonable amount of prize money you are pretty much guaranteed to get entries. Wait at a few hours (roughly 5 hours) before considering bumping your thread as it takes time for designs to be completed and getting away with more than one bump without penalization is pretty lucky.

Ask that entries into your contest are posted openly in the forum thread so everyone can see each others designs and the feedback you provide to each. Give feedback to every entry, (even if you are sure you won’t use it) so that everyone can learn from each other to gain clearer idea of what you want. Always be friendly with positives and negatives included in your critique (or at least a “thank you for your entry”). There are plenty of other contests the designer could enter and so it’s all about making them feel inclined to enter yours.

Good luck with your logo contest!

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I am going to explain why a Ning network is a great investment and how to market your network effectively for free.

The single big disadvantage with Ning is that the Network must always be hosted with them, so you cannot easily sell your network. However, this forces you to create a long-term profitable network; no dumping it off on someone else if it doesn’t work right away!

Case Study: NetworkAirsoft.com

Below is a case study of a Ning network of my own, which has proved to be a solid investment. I built Network Airsoft to complement an airsoft blog I owned (which I have since sold). Network Airsoft is now profitable all by itself despite it not having a blog to drive traffic to and it is completely self-sustaining. Network Airsoft uses a free Ning theme (like almost all Ning networks do), with a customized header graphic and various upgrades which cost $32.85 per month, with a $10 extra per year for the domain name (total $42). If you are not a graphic designer you may need to pay slightly extra for a logo/header graphic pushing the total up to roughly $50.

How To Make Money From A Ning Network:

These are ways to directly monetize the traffic of your network. If you are using the network to promote a blog or other Websites of yours then your network will be doubly effective.

• Using adsense on a social network gives a terrible click through ratio and very low earnings per click due to the low quality score. Network Airsoft yielded 3 cents from 1 click after thousands of impressions. Adsense is not the way to monetize a Ning network!
• Using CPM ads has potential but requires lots of tweaking and experimentation. I used AdBrite for this, which yielded better results than Adsense, but not enough. You may fare better if your Ning network is in a more mainstream niche.
• Adding an e-commerce or affiliate store is a good option. In the first month of adding an ebay affiliate store I had over 40 bids. Unfortunately airsoft products are quite cheap and so the commissions are small, but if you were to build a Ning network based around a more expensive hobby a lot of money could be made.
• Building an email list. As explained in Yaro Starak’s conversion blogging video, email lists can be very profitable and can be set up with aweber. There is no reason for them not to work well on a Ning network also.
• Finding a sponsor to buy banner ads privately is in my opinion the best way to monetize the network. I’ve done this on Network Airsoft and it brings in by far the most money and it has other benefits. For example mentioning on the site that you have a sponsor, makes your network much more professional, it is a form of social proof. The ultimate move is to persuade your sponsor to give away a relevant item to your members in a contest where members have to promote the site in some way, e.g. by creating a promotional video for your network on Youtube mentioning your sponsor and your network. Everybody wins!

How To Find A Sponsor For Your Ning Network

Remember that niche social networks are new and exciting, advertisers are interested. It is far easier to find a sponsor for a fast growing Ning network than for a blog. A simple way to find a sponsor is to do some quick research and email other more popular sites in your niche. I sent about 20 emails and 2 of them showed interest, with one following up with the sponsorship. Be polite in your email, but aggressive enough with the facts about your network to excite their curiosity.

Marketing Your Ning Network

Marketing a Ning network is a little different to marketing a blog, but just as much fun. It is much less about SEO and so more emphasis is on the social element. Here are some methods, all free of course:

• Facebook marketing. Using a Facebook account to drive traffic is easy. A method I have had success with is adding friends from relevant groups and pages (I’ve made 2000 friends that way). Every time I update my status I am displaying a message or even a link to 2000 people in their news feed. Facebook has sent 100s of highly targeted visitors that way and what is great is the high conversion ratio into network members. On Facebook (as I’m sure you know) your friends can check out your profile and even contact you, so you can answer questions and say hello to your future members, which knocks down any barriers they may have preventing them from joining your ning network
• Promoting your network in forums drives traffic. I have found that because Ning networks are so new and ‘cutting edge’ you can actually create a whole thread about your new network without it being seen as spam because the forum members are actually exited to see a social network about their hobby. This is especially true if your social network is the first in its niche.
• Emailing news blogs in your niche. This one is just common sense but can yield powerful results. Any relevant blog with a readership is a target for your pitch compelling them to blog about your new social network . News blogs (or any blog for that matter) are looking for stories, but be sure to find out the bloggers name to address them personally in the email because this is more polite and always generates much better results.
• The search engines will send you traffic all by themselves. Unlike with a blog where where every post can count and getting the keywords in the title is important (and all the other SEO factors), with a ning network your members are creating the content and they don’t think about keywords. Also most of the links gained are from forums from your own members virally spreading the word for you, so you have no control over the anchor text. Even with a lots of links it takes Google some time to fully index a Ning network, don’t expect traffic from Google for at least 1 month, but after the first couple of months has gone by Google traffic will consistently increase in proportion to the amount of content on your network.

Viral Widgets

Ning lets you create a mini Facebook application for your network, such as a slideshow that displays the latest photos your members have uploaded. These applications are viral and can dramatically increase traffic to your network. These require zero programming knowledge and can be set up very quickly.

Your ning network also comes with a variety of widgets for your members to display on their Myspace pages or blogs of their own. For an example see the widget below:

Visit Network Airsoft

Summary

Many of the monetization methods are the similar to with a blog. The big difference is that Ning networks create self-sustaining passive income. Once your network reaches a certain number of pages in Google and a certain number of members promoting it virally it will continue to grow all by itself. All you have to do is monetize and moderate it, with the occasional contest or other promotional event to push it forward faster. Members of your network may volunteer to moderate it, which is good news for you!

To be taken seriously by your members and sponsors and also for the sake of branding, the upgraded version of Ning with your own domain name and no Ning ads really is necessary.

Can you think of a better way Internet Marketers can spend $50?

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How Posting Less Makes You More Money

Posting less cuts costs. That is true if you write all your blog posts yourself or if you outsource the writing, it saves time and or money. Cutting costs means your profit increases and as we all know profit is by far the most important factor when selling a blog (or any business). However, posting less poses a risk of decreasing traffic and as a result earnings, which would obviously decrease profits. If you can get the balance right by lowing the frequency of your posts just the right amount to keep traffic, you will make more money from your blog each month and also sell for a higher price.

Why This Is Especially True For Blogs

One of the main deterrents for buying a blog is the high maintenance costs. If you can prove that you only need a couple of posts per month to keep your traffic your blog suddenly becomes of interest to buyers as who normally wouldn’t enter the blog market.

The type of blog also matters. On a flagship blog with a loyal readership it is far more risky to lower the posting frequency and less beneficial. What you are really trying to find out is the magic number of posts needed for keeping Google traffic to your niche blog(s), where there are only a few other small traffic sources.

How To Effectively Experiment With Posting Frequency On Blogs

If you normally post once per week and suddenly stop for a month that is a very dangerous experiment. I would suggest easing down the posting frequency in stages. If you normally post once per week, try seeing if you keep your traffic when you post every 10 days for a month. If you manage that I would keep it stable at 1 post every 10 days for another month and then try lowering again. If traffic decreased (or decreased too much) then raise the number of posts back up to once per week.

Conclusion

This is for primarily for niche blogs where the main traffic sources are the search engines. With a very young niche blog (less than 3 months old) experimenting in this way is too dangerous. However, with a 6+ month old niche blog with stable rankings it is a great way to make extra money.

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Normal bricks and mortar businesses sell for a much higher multiple than blogs, usually because blogs are much younger and as a result have much less stable earnings. Often with a blog you find advertisers only to lose them again. The method that “if I can just get one advertiser to pay $100 this month I can sell the whole blog for $1000″ will be very rarely work. This gets more true as the numbers get bigger because buyers with more to spend tend to be smarter and understand the value of stable earnings.

This has been brought to the front of my mind due to a recent blog sale of mine which you can see here on SitePoint. The 4 months of stable earnings I had meant the blog sold for a high multiple.

Lesson

If you just manage to keep earnings the steady for just 1 more month you have increased your blogs value. Even if your subscribers, traffic and google pagerank all stay the same, 1 more month of earnings makes a big difference in the amount of money your blog will sell for.

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This is the second part of a two part series discussing the most profitable type of blog content.

In part one I showed that blogs can be seen to educate, inform or entertain the readership and I outlined the various advantages that come with monetizing news and resource blogs, which inform and educate.

Monetization Problems For Entertainment Blogs

A blog like this has a problem with monetization because the readership is so broad and un-targeted it can be hard to sell any certain product and AdSense clicks aren’t a good alternative as they would yield a low click through ratio and low earnings per click. Generally people who are bored go to entertainment blogs to kill time without a specific purpose, or if they do have a purpose is it to read/watch the blog and not to go shopping.

The Solution To Monetizing Entertainment Blogs

Entertainment blogs have a big advantage that they attract traffic like bees and so a great form of revenue is CPM ads, which pay by a rate per 1000 impressions and don’t require clicks. One of the best CPM ads are are full page Ads from Adbrite, which pay very well, sometimes up to $5 per 1000 impressions.

An example of a site that uses a combination of gossip and weird news stories to attract to attract a large mainstream readership is CitiJournalist.com. CitiJournalist takes the traffic advantages of news blogs, such as having a never ending supply of stories as well as the ability to use linkbaiting tactics more easily; and combines them with entertainment very successfully.

Conclusion

Profitability of blog content is all about the traffic to value of visitor ratio. With resource blogs an individual visitor is often more valuable but harder to attract, whereas on news and entertainment blogs an individual visitor is often less valuable but less costly to attract. Therefore all types of blog content can be highly profitable and ultimately it comes down to the quality of the content and how well it is marketed.

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