Advertise on the Monetizer Blog

If you're looking to get your blog or site noticed, The Monetizer blog offers two very easy and cost-effective ways to advertise here:

1) Get a link on the Top Spots Widget - This Widget is placed high up on the left sidebar, right above the previous posts spot. For a $5 tip you will get prime exposure on a well-traveled blog (300,000 Alexa). The blog also enjoys a Page Rank of 3 from Google and is #178 and climbing the 45n5.com Top 100 Make Money Blogs. This isn't so much bragging, but more to let you know what you will get if you go with an ad here. To advertise just use the widget and click on the "get on my top spots" link. Your link and text will display for 30 days. Payment is made via PayPal.

2)Use the Free Entrecard 125x125 spot - This method is free and provides you a graphic 125x125 ad here. This widget is lower down on the blog, but still visible to visitors in the left hand column. All you need to do is head over to Entrecard and sign up, then upload your free 125x125 image. An ad here has ranged from about 40 - 69 credits, which is a very affordable "free" option. I've rejected just a few ads that I can recall, because they were political in nature. Feel free to advertise with the Monetizer this way if you already are using Entrecard or are new to sign up. You can find Monetizer on the Make Money category at Entrecard.

If you're in the make money online, internet, SEO, HTML, marketing or business realms those 2 methods are a good way to get some exposure for your blog or site. I'm also open to networking opportunities and guest posts as well. Feel free to contact me at Monetizer@myway.com with any questions or ideas.

The Monetizer is on Problogger!

Today is a great day in the history of The Monetizer. Yes, today my free Entrecard 125x125 ad is running over on Darren Rowse's Problogger.net. Don't want to toot my horn too much, but it's kinda a big deal...As many know Darren's blog is the epitome of all blogs, and what many of us blogers aspire to become in the blogosphere. Darren is at the top of the "Big 3" and ranks #1 on the 45n5.com Make Money Online list. He has thousands of subscribers to his blog as well. He's a true pro as the name of his blog says, and offers a load of great info for anyone blogging. I've referred to his blog many a time not only for tips and techniques, but also for inspiration in making money online. So thank you to Darren for running The Monetizer card on Problogger! Best of all it's free, whereas many others have had to pay to be there...Folks, make sure you use Entrecard!

I want to welcome anyone who may stop over here to The Monetizer blog from Problogger. It's great to have you here. Feel free to sign up for the Monetizer RSS feed, and enjoy your stay as you browse the various Moneymaking ideas and other fun stuff!

The Failures & Successes of 2007

2007 was a pretty cool year in terms of blogging and moneymaking for The Monetizer. I discovered a plethora of great new blogs this past year which have helped me along the way. There were also several very useful innovations introduced to bloggers, and they seem to get bigger and better than ever. Not only that, several of these innovations were free of charge.

2 Successes in 2007

First up we had BloggingZoom, an amazing Digg-like service for Bloggers. Rather than trying to get "Dugg", bloggers could now get Zoomed to top rankings. Not only that, but the Zooms were coming from fellow bloggers and not spiteful Digg artists. Many a blogger has noted how tough it is to reach the front page of Digg, while stating its traffic benefits are great. However, getting Zoomed is even better because b It also provided new feedback for articles and networking opportunities, as bloggers worked to help each other out. BloggingZoom should stay strong and continue to be a great service into the next year.

Second up, we had Graham Langdon's Entrecard system. The online business card for bloggers allows a blog owner to get new exposure, traffic and free advertising. The catch phrase "Drop Yours" is now something many bloggers are aware of. According to Graham they recently reached 1000 blogs owning business cards at Entrecard. An amazing feat and the number will continue to grow in 2008. The make money category started around 30 when I first joined, and is now reaching 200 or so. It shows the saturation of this topic, but also how fast the service is growing. Nonetheless, newer and smaller blogs have a way to get discovered and advertise their blogs on bigger sites. Kudos to the developers of this 125x125 means of free advertising for all bloggers. Entrecard will continue unrolling new developments and features next year, so it will only get better for bloggers.

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2 Failures in 2007

While there were those 2 successes, Monetizer saw what he also considers 2 failures in 2007. The first we all would agree is Agloco. Agloco can be equated to a make money con artists site, and many of us took the bait early on. It gave false hope and promises. For months many a blogger and site owner were pitching Agloco to others, in the hopes they could amass a huge network of referrals. The more people they had, the greater the chance for "riches" from the site. There was a quirky viewbar involved, or several versions of one. However, now that Agloco can't deliver on these promises, there's no way to get a refund for time and effort spent trying to promote their concept to others.

The second failure in my opinion is BlogRush. Some may disagree as many site owners believe it's great to run that widget on their site. In the beginning there was nothing but stalling as the site kept promising "soon we will have stats", "soon you will see how great this product is". But soon after a few months of trying it out, the Monetizer realizes that BlogRush works best on blogs already receiving steady traffic. Or it requires you to get a lot of people to sign up and hope they are getting traffic. Entrecard is much easier to employ and brings traffic and new subscribers. BlogRush requires luck, traffic, a catchy headline and referrals. I think I'll stick to Entrecard in 08'.

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Wikis, Cows & What's to Come

Wiki Wiki Wiki Wiki... 2007 also saw an abundance of Wiki sites popping up. The jury is still out on whether they are a success or failure. Wikipedia is the current champ, but it spawned MillionDollarWiki, MillionEuroWiki, Ten and Five dollar wikis and even the new QuarterWiki. How will these do in 2008? Time will tell on these, but they still can offer benefits in terms of a new place to advertise and set up shop.

My favorite new blog I discovered in 2007 was easily John Cow. I discovered it because of John Chow, and Monetizer finds it very creative and entertaining to read. Even though Cow seemed to reject my Entrecard there's no hard feelings. He ran a Monetizer ad in his RSS feed for quite a while, which helped out here. So I wish the Cow the best of luck as he continues in 2008!

So what will be the next big blogging or money making development of 2008? There's a ton of blogs being born on the web daily. Some will fade away, and some will survive. There's also plenty of creativity and brainpower floating around the blogosphere, so it won't be long before we see "the next big thing".

Using Socialmarker & Niche Sites

Here's a few late Christmas presents. These items will help you in creating niche sites for profit, getting your blog noticed by Google and others, as well as giving you valuable link backs to your blog.

First things first, you should definitely get set up with Socialmarker.com. This site includes 30 social bookmarking sites and allows you to easily submit your items to them all. It's better than having to go and log in to each site every time. The Socialmarker site includes the well known choices of Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Delicious and then 26 more, some you may have never heard of.

Make sure to register with all the bookmarking sites first (yes it's tedious, but worth it). It's been suggested that you create a newly created email for all of these, maybe use myway.com or inbox.com where you can create free email accounts. Once you are registered, Socialmarker allows you to easily submit a site or blog entry to all of those 30 bookmarking sites. You simply supply the title, the URL, description, and tags. Social marker will go through site by site and auto-populate the fields. You will be able to alter them of course, as not every site is the same in what it asks for. But this definitely will make your life easier and give you backlinks to your blog itself, posts or other site. Socialmarker.com also has a special icon you can drag to your bookmarks/links area on Firefox. Then next time you want to bookmark a site or blog entry, just click the button for Socialmarker!

The above tool will help you promote any blog entries or sites you have, including specialized sites. Also known as niche sites, these can provide you additional passive income. The Monetizer has enjoyed building these on Squidoo, which is one free place to do so. An entry by Monika at Writer's Manifesto Blog presents the several ways to build niche sites, including Squidoo, Hub Pages and blogs. Read Monika's article here

There's a great article which discusses how to use your blog with Squidoo, related articles you wrote and RSS to create a sort of Squidoo goggle dance. Following the 9 steps will help to get Google to take notice as well as create links back to your sites. It can even get you multiple listings on the first page of Google search results, if done properly. See the article here.

Hope that all moneymakers and bloggers had a fun, happy and prosperous holiday!