Learn from the Cow vs. Conn MMO Battle!

Controversy creates cash is a famous motto someone once said. The more controversy you create, the more interest is generated in you or your product. Take for example the brutal sports entertainment known as professional wrestling, such as WWE. They constantly try to push the limits of stories in their brutal male soap opera just to gain more viewers, ratings and people buying their merchandise and monthly Pay-Per-Views. So it's really no surprise that the blogging world uses similar tactics.

Bloggers aren't necessarily competing in steel cage matches, but have a close equivalent of them in the blogosphere, using written wars and blog-based competitions. In fact, many bloggers swear by the concept of calling out other bloggers just to stir things up. A-list bloggers also realize the potential for a good blogging battle. Take for example the battle of John Chow vs. Shoemoney. The two powerhouse bloggers had a challenge to see who could gain more RSS subscribers during their contest. In the process they gave away some great prizes while doing an excellent job of adding more subscribers and fans for their blogs. Many people said both guys won in the process, as did the readers who followed along, or even won prizes.

Now we have two more bloggers going at it in the Make Money Online blogging world. I won't get into all the specifics, because I enjoy reading both their blogs, and don't want to be blacklisted from any A-list events they host. In essence, Garry Conn called into question some of the MMO practices of John Cow, prompting the Cow to "moo back". Eventually it got to the point where the two decided to have a good ol' fashioned battle to settle the feud. The guys really aren't mad at each other, but they still are going to have one heckuva "cowpetition" just to see who's best at MMO. So now we, the readers get to witness the Conn man vs. the Cow, and as you can see from the above image, both guys have already declared themselves the winner!

What's great about this sort of thing is both guys are offering free "classes" to those readers who want to see it all go down. The contest involves them each trying to build a niche site to see who can sell theirs for more on Sitepoint. So in this contest, everyone wins, because the readers can see firsthand what two successful bloggers do to make money online. By signing up for both John Cow and Garry Comm's class updates, you'll be gaining insight into the process it takes to build successful sites online and you'll gain valuable tips to aid your own quest online. Both these guys have done great work, so you'll be missing out if you don't sign-up or peek in on their cowpetition battle from time to time!

Check out John Cow's post about the cowpetition here.

Check out Gary Conn's post about the cowpetition here.

Make Money Online with Linkshare!

The LinkShare.com affiliate program is a recent favorite of the Monetizer. It provides such a variety of companies that there's bound to be one available for your specific blog or website. Categories of affiliate companies range from Family/Kids to Computers, Financial Services and Food/Beverage. So no matter what you're blogging about at the moment, there's bound to be an appropriate program you can add into the moneymaking mix.

Here's several of the benefits of the Linkshare affiliate program:

1 - Huge variety of affiliate programs - Everyone from Apple to Apple iTunes to Walmart and Dell is part of Linkshare. You're very likely to find at least a few programs with products you can promote on your website or blog. Another great example is the Kayak.com affiliate, which could be great on a travel website or blog since they offer all sorts of Travel Deals. Each program has specifics on what they pay you for, as some pay for leads and others pay a percentage to you for people's actions or purchases. There's actually a separate "Lead Advantage" program you can join to promote lead-based affiliate programs. These are the programs that just want you to refer people to their sites , and at times they can be easier money made!

2 - Easy to implement codes - You simply log in and then select the "Create Links" tab on your account dashboard. This will take you to a list of all programs you currently belong to and were accepted into. You click on the company's name and it will take you to their Linkshare page. For example with the iTunes program you can implement text/HTML or email code, banners, and even an RSS for the latest hot-selling songs. For a music blog or site this is a dream come true, if you have a good amount of traffic.

3 - Set your own minimum payout - You can receive a commission check for any amount you choose, with the minimum at just $1. It always feels better to know you've earned something for all your efforts, and Linkshare told me via email that payments are mailed once a week. So this could provide you yet another quick way to earn online. Set it at $5, $10, $25, $100...it's all up to you and when you'd like to have them "show you the money".

4 - Updated programs & offers - Many of the affiliates will send friendly emails to let you know they have new promotions you might benefit from. For example, there may be a new batch of TV and movie downloads at iTunes or a new credit card deal with an affiliate company. They take good care of you to let you know as soon as possible, so you can use the new campaigns on your site.

I think just about anyone will get accepted into LinkShare.com, which means you can use it right away. Your blog can be a week old, hosted on Blogspot and getting low traffic and you most likely will be accepted by Linkshare.com. Keep in mind you will need to apply to their various companies such as iTunes, WalMart or whoever you'd like to use on your blog or site. Some companies accept right away, while others will have stricter requirements for who they accept (based on traffic, Pagerank, age of site, etc).



Linkshare also sports a brand new and improved account interface, which works quite well on Windows XP and Firefox. It also provides a much better reporting layout, because the older version still seems to have "2005" as the latest date you can look at for payments.

Signing up for LinkShare.com is free and easy. You'll be asked for the usual specifics such as Name, address, phone, SS #, info about your site and marketing/sales campaigns, as well as some info for the W-2 so you can get payed. Also, be sure to select that you're signing up as "Publisher" not Advertiser, unless you want to sell your own products you have on Linkshare.

Click here for free LinkShare Membership

17 Bookmarking Sites that Dofollow You

The Monetizer uses the great website resource Socialmarker.com quite often to help spread the word about various blog entries and also help with getting link love. This plays a huge part in getting noticed by search engines like Google & Yahoo. I've noticed within a day sometimes that a blog entry I submitted to Socialmarker's sites as well as a few other places gets to the front page of Google search results. Not too shabby.

Here's a list of sites you might want to join, because according to Socialmarker these "Dofollow", meaning your links will have relevance and power on their sites. These can provide you with great links back to your content which can help increase page rank and your chances at being discovered.

Without further ado, here are the bookmarking sites that Dofollow:

Mister-wong.com

Spurl.net

Diigo.com

Rawsugar.com

Furl.net

Backflip.com

Bibsonomy.org

Myjeeves.ask.com

Connectedy

Buddy Marks

MyLinkVault

A1 Webmarks

myVmarks

OYAX

Bookmark Tracker

Health Ranker

Linkagogo.com

Utilize the above list sparingly. For example try not to send 10 entries to each site from your blog one after the other. This could get you banned and hurt your chances at gaining links. Also, if you get spare time you may want to check into networking on the various sites. As you gain friends and connections, they may do you a favor and also bookmark your content. Also if your in the make money online niche, these sites can help gain you new referrals in turn making you money.

To get all these sites you can use the website Socialmarker.com and click on the "Dofollow" link above all the sites if you want to submit to just those sites, but I'd recommend submitting your link to as many bookmark sites as you can.

$7.49 Domain Names!

If you want to add that professional look to your free-hosted blog site then you should seriously consider adding a domain name (www.yourblogname.com). I was reading the blog of Scott Fox over at Amazon.com. Scott is author of Internet Riches: The Simple Money-making Secrets of Online Millionaires. On his blog he mentioned InternetMillionaireDomains.com (yea it's a mouthful!) Currently at their site they offer a rock bottom deal: domain names for $7.49. This is about $2.50 cheaper than Go Daddy and many other sites selling domains. They aren't just $7.49 for one year either, you can get that deal for up to 10 years!

At GoDaddy.com where I've purchased domains before, you can get domains to start for $1.99, but only if you also purchase another product, like hosting. But after your first year, you'll pay the going rate for your domain which is closer to $10 for each year.

The $7.49 domain also includes FREE STUFF:

Online Photo Filer
Personalized Email Account
Web Site Builder
Starter Web Page
Domain Forwarding
100-Pack Email Forwarding
Total DNS Control

Take advantage of the $7.49 domain deal while you can, it's unknown how long this will last!