Lesson Learned in Blogging: Be Prepared!

First off, apologies to the faithful readers who stop by and view the Monetizer blog regularly. It's been a while folks, and ironically not even a day after I installed a brand new, more powerful wireless router, there was an internet outage here in the area. It turns out there was a bad fire in a nearby town which ended up damaging a major fiber optics line. That incident left The Monetizer and many other people without the internet for days. It's hard to remember back to a time when people didn't rely on the internet as heavily, but I do seem to recall them. Amazingly, the internet allows us to do so much from banking to making money online and keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances, that we really take it for granted. When it goes down many of us are lost.

Needless to say, when the net is down, so is my ability to update any of my blogs, check my online accounts, etc. My streak of updating one of my most heavily search engine visited blogs ended on Tuesday, as I had no way to post. I could have driven around looking for a free wi fi spot with my MAC laptop, but in a remote woodsy area, that can be a challenge and quite time consuming. But now in hindsight I've come up with some helpful things for all regular bloggers to keep in mind. These are just in case a disaster or minor incident strikes that interferes with your ability to blog, such as your internet service is out or your computer goes down. You basically should consider several alternatives and backup plans to keep your blog in business during those times. These may be common sense, but they're lifesavers in the blogging biz. Here's some ideas...

1) Schedule your blog posts in advance - Both blogger and wordpress allow the ability to create a blog post and then set the time and date of your choosing. I've used this feature quite a bit for my one blog, to automatically post at a certain hour each Monday and Friday. It's been quite helpful, and when I took a vacation, I set up a series of 5 blog posts to go up each day I was away. Definitely a life saver, and it could also provide you a nice break from blogging if you want it.

2)Have another blogger on staff - Whether this be your family member, friend or someone you hire, having another person authorized to post for you can also be helpful. Maybe it's a virtual assistant you hire. These people can be prepared to be your lifeline and post a blog or just an update to let your readers know what's going on and why you might not be posting in the near future.

3) Find the internet - As today continues with no internet service, I'm coming up with all the possibilities of internet services I can use free of charge. Examples are public libraries, friend or family in nearby areas, and the good ol' Bojangles fast food stop which offers free Wi-fi to patrons. I'm contemplating getting myself to one of these soon, because I hate to let my fans down and also realize that if the internet is out for days my email box will probably be overflowing with spam!

I've also considered the option of phones. I don't have the fancy Blackberry or iPhone quite yet, but I'm assuming these could also be lifesavers and allow people to blog over that wireless service. Granted, many of us find typing on a regulation size keyboard easier than the tiny ones that come with a phone. There may be ways to upload text from your computer to the phone/PDA so keep that in mind as another alternative.

It's times like these that truly put you to the test and can make or break your business. Folks, my best blogging advice is to always be prepared as best you can when disaster strikes. Always have a plan so that your blogging business can "weather the storm" and keep on going, and your readers will stay with you.

Here's to your success,
The Monetizer

Make your Webhosting Choice!

Just recently I purchased 3 new domain names as well as web hosting for some new make money online projects. As you probably know, there's a ton of different hosting companies you can choose to go with and each has its own unique benefits such asthe size of space you get online, bandwith sizes, number of domains you can host on the account, email accounts, and more. When you start seeing all the various offers for hosting in magazines and online, you begin to realize it's mindblowing just how many of these companies exist. If you don't have word of mouth from someone else, making the hosting decision could be difficult.

A website resource that seems like a great spot to start your search for web hosting is Webhostingchoice.com. This site provides a directory of web hosts as well as educational resources about hosting, to help novices and more experienced bloggers or webmasters. Among the resources are an article on how to identify webhosting scams, as well as an article on Colocation, which is an advanced topic I never knew much about until now. In addition to these informative articles, webhostingchoice.com provides the advanced search feature which is especially helpful because it allows you to specify just what you want in a web hosting choice. You can set the specifics for bandwidth, diskspace, subdomains, FTP, emails and more. You can also type in your maximum monthly payment for web hosting (within reason, because 99 cents won't get you anyt results). A sample search I did with a maximum monthly payment of $9.99 turned up the exact host I chose to go with a few months ago, Hostgator, so I know this resource does what it says. Many people have recommended Hostgator, but after I specified just what I wanted in a webhost, it was the only choice which came up for me. Perfect. In addition to the search, you can look at their various Host directory choices such as best options for Blog hosting, Adult Hosting and E-commerce.

Check out webhostingchoice.com if you're looking for the best web host for your blog or website project. It can save you hours of pulling out your hair while trying to find the best hosting choice for you!

Make Money with Vinefire, Maybe?

Have you joined Vinefire? Members could make anywhere from $10-$100 a day with this new online moneymaker!


So the other night I stumbled onto a new blog that was all about ways to use Squidoo lenses and defending them as a great moneymaking, linkbuilding tools. The blog which is run by PotPieGirl, a Squidoo moneymaker, had some valuable insight and information regarding making profitable lenses that get indexed and ranked in Google. From that blog, I decided to click over to another associated site which talked about building Niche sites with Wordpress, something Internet marketing coach Courtney Tuttle also discusses. From there, I learned about a free web tool I wasn't aware of yet, called CBAnalytics, which helps people rate and compare various Clickbank affiliate products. And from there I learned about an interesting "potential" moneymaker named Vinefire, which I also had never heard of until that night. It's amazing how many things you can learn about in this MMO niche, meaning there's no true experts on all make money online concepts...

So back to Vinefire, it's a "free" member driven content site much like Digg or other sites where you submit site links and vote on popularity of various items. The moneymaking scenario sounds not only tempting but easy and almost "too good to be true". 54 cents for every posted link you visit, 90 cents for every sponsor link you visit, 12 cents for every link you vote on, 4 cents if someone votes up your link, and 50% of the earnings of any friends you refer to Vinefire. As a basic member you can earn up to $10 a day with the site, and there's an option to pay $5 to verify your account which then enables you to earn up to $100 a day. Not too shabby right?

But wait, there's a catch, which will seem like "Agloco deja vu" to many people. Vinefire really wants to pay its members, and intends to, but they can't...yet. They are sitting back and waiting for Vinefire to grow in popularity and when certain site growth metrics have been achieved, they are also expecting to be bought up by a large company. At their forums in their FAQ they mention there is a potential suitor already in line to buy them. From the proceeds of that sale, which Vinefire expects to be valued in the millions, members will finally get paid. Vinefire has set their target payout date of June 1, 2009, not too far away. The interesting thing with that is originally they were planning to pay people in January of 2010. So they moved it up to keep people interested in the prospects. Apparently the villagers had their pitchforks and torches ready when they found out how long it might take to get money from Vinefire.

At the Vinefire forums they also add:

Please don't assume that the payout date has moved to June 1, 2009. It is simply a possibility...if we are able to reach certain growth goals. This includes things such as the number of new members, listing upgrades (Yellow Star, etc.), verified accounts, etc.

Yep, I know what everyone's thinking. Vinefire sounds like another Agloco or Boomertowne just waiting to collapse right underneath all its loyal members. There was a lot of angry people over those two websites and rightfully so. And to be honest, I was thinking the same thing about Vinefire too. It would be a shame to invest a lot of effort in promoting and frequenting that site with one's time only to receive a "Sorry Out of Business" notice one day. But despite that The Monetizer still joined, for the simple reason of testing it out. There's no reason not to get your feet wet with another money opportunity online. But definitely keep the lessons you may have learned from Agloco and Boomertowne in mind. Don't go all out with promotion, because if you do and they fail, it will be a tragic waste of your efforts trying to make money online.

If you're interested in a potential moneymaker, join Vinefire and take their special 10 day challenge...

Update: My account is at the $20 level on Day 2, just for clicking several links..of course, time will tell if that money is delivered...

Everyone's a Twitterer, even Oprah!

It's official. After yesterday's episode of Oprah hit the airwaves, millions of Americans more have now learned about the phenomenon that is Twitter (You can follow Oprah on Twitter here). On yesterday's show, Oprah had the creators of Twitter on including Evan Williams, as well as Mr. Twitter popularity himself, Ashton Kucher, aka @aplusk. As you may know Kucher was in a heated battle with CNN's Twitter to see which of them could amass 1 million followers first. The movie star won it, and was saying how great it is that he can defeat a media giant like CNN, because it shows just how powerful social media really is. On an interesting note, Kucher promotes the celebrity gossip humor site blahgirls.com with his Twitter profile. And by the way, CNN has also achieved 1 million followers. It's starting to look like the next battle may be Britney Spears versus Ellen Degeneres for 1 million. It's also amazing how now that the 2008 election has passed, Barack Obama's Twitter is falling down the Top 10 list.. View the top Twitterers here

Also, there's talk about Google possibly buying up Twitter. You can already feel the moneymaking wheels start to spin.

In Google's earnings call, CEO Eric Schmidt is quoted as saying:

"Without commenting specifically about Twitter ... you could imagine that ... it could be a channel for product information, marketing information, real-time information for which you can hang advertising products, whether it's a text ad or a video ad or so forth off of it ... It strikes me that's a logical strategy for them to pursue and something that we would be very happy to pursue with them and all other players in that space.” (via SIA)

As we all know Google is slowly taking over the web world, and if you're using Adsense you're probably aware there's Adsense for websites/blogs, mobile content, RSS feeds and domain names. So what's next, Adsense for Twitter?

If you're not on the bandwagon, now's as good a time as any to join, and Follow the Monetizer at Twitter. It's rare these days not to go to any company or superstar's website and not see icons or "join up" pictures for Facebook and Twitter. If the big folks are doing, the little folks can benefit just as much. I read an article discussing the concept of getting rid of the whole "follower count" on Twitter, because it makes those with less followers feel as if they're not being heard. That may be true, but there's plenty of ways to increase your followers, namely following others, holding contests and tweeting things that others will be interested in. Others have even mentioned that you should make it a habit to include hashtags "#" in front of key words when you send a Tweet. An example would be:

Learning a new strategy for testing #Adsense ads on my site.

In that Tweet, the word Adsense gets emphasis and picked up amongst searches for Adsense via Twitter. If you do this regularly, supposedly you can gain more and more followers. Also consider using search.twitter.com where you can type in specific searches across Twitter, then follow people who mentioned those keywords in their Tweets. These are just a few tips and tricks to get targeted Twitter followers based on your niche.

The Monetizer will be one of the first to admit I'm no Twitter expert, but have started learning ways it can be implemented into my various projects. You may hate technology but it's usually the businesses, brands and entrepreneurs who embrace it and find creative new ways to market who benefit the most from sites like Twitter.

Extra tip: Check out the Top Twitterers list and see what sorts of websites each are promoting. You may discover some new monetization ideas from their sites, blogs, etc for your niche!

Follow the Monetizer at Twitter!