Weigh Your Moneymaking Options

In the world of online moneymaking, the Monetizer has learned a very valuable lesson we all should heed: "if it doesn't seem worth the money being made, then forget it". Case in point would be paid survey sites and those paid blogging sites. Both are nice opportunities to get a "bit" of extra money, but let's be realistic, if a site asks you to blog about a dry topic you just can't get a feel for, is it worth $10 or $20? Also, if a survey is taking you over 30 minutes to do and paying under a dollar, is it worth it? Most likely not. In either case you might be better off working a half hour extra at a real job :)

The best sources of online income seem to be the one everyone loves, passive income. The type where you've set up a site, it gets search engine love and visits keep on coming. Affiliate marketing and sales would rank as numero uno for this, where you build sites designed just to promote a product and receive a percent commission of its sale. Other examples of some small passive income would be two sites the Monetizer has mentioned, Squidoo and Associated Ccontent. Both can earn you moeny while you're away from them. Squidoo will give you a share of their Adsense revenue, if your lens page happens to be doing well. Associated Content will give you $1.50 for every 1,000 page views one of your submitted articles gets. It's not a ton of money, but if you did a timeless article on AC, you may benefit from long term income sources there. Submitting a ton of articles and making a ton of Squidoo sites could add up though. These are also both ways to promote your site as well. On each you can place links back, and on Squidoo you can go as far as to include your RSS feeds.

Deciding whether you want to put more effort into aggressive income like blogging versus setting up sites for passive income such as affiliate sales should be a major moneymaking consideration.

You also have to weigh the following when starting a moneymaking blog:

1) Do you start off with a free blog site from the get go, gauge how well it is performing, and then move to a hosted domain?

2) Do you partner up and find people to help make your site even better? Do you pay for site design and how much should you spend?

3) Do you eventually sell your site once it's built up a big following and traffic levels? How much is realistic to even ask for?

Almost every major blogger will tell you with question #1 to make sure you get that self-hosted domain from the start. Trust me it's something I'm learning the hard way about with another blog that has built up a decent following. Sometimes you may want to start from the ground up though, and maybe going with Wordpress from the start before hosting makes most sense. With #2 above, you usually can do well just finding free templates for your blog and waiting until you're making the money to afford a better site design. And with #3 selling your blog, sure who wouldn't want to pull some cash off a blog or site? The problem with #3 though is you usually will become attached to a blog or site you've done. It's your brainchild and your creation, so it will be a tough decision to wrestle with. Blogging Fingers recently was sold for $6000 though and quite honestly most of us would take an extra $6000 for a site we created. However, figuring out what your blog is worth can be a bit complex too.

So when you first start up any blog, you may way to consider the 3 questions above. If you're looking to make money from the project, you'll want to weigh the risks and rewards and consider the best strategy for your particular blog topic.

Sites that Haven't Payed the Monetizer, But Will

This isn't a slam against any of the following moneymaker programs and it's not a "break their kneecaps" type threat by the Monetizer either. In fact it's more of a testimony to the fact that there's other programs and ways you can use to make money online besides big old Google Adsense. In a previous post Monetizer mentioned online programs that have payed out, including Adsense which is a steady earner. Even though Adsense is tried and true, there exists other programs that tend to bring in some extra loot, and probably work well if you set them up and tweak them right. Here's 4 more online moneymakers where Monetizer hasn't been payed, but will because there's a threshold to be met. Each item will include the Anticipated Time for Payment or "ATP".

1) AuctionAds - Monetizer actually likes this program and believes it could do well if used with the right niches. In fact, here's a few ideas. Video game blog/sites or technology sites will probably do very well with this. If you're a video game-aholic or techie you probably like to get cool new stuff and find good deals on it. The Monetizer does and confesses to buying video games used off Ebay. It makes sense to buy a game used for $20 or less rather than full price. That said, you'd best believe there are others out there who want video games off Ebay. Same goes for tech toys, like computer accessories. Building a blog or website around either topic makes a great deal of sense.

Monetizer is close to AuctionAd's threshold of $50, mostly due to their $25 signup bonus they start you with. However not many people will complain with another $50 coming their way. The main issue Monetizer is seeing is that AuctionAds does not show you much in the way of your stats for referral earnings. Referrals seem to help too with this one, and as mentioned above if you developed one of those type sites you probably will see good AuctionAds results.

ATP - Within the next month or so Monetizer should hit the threshold for the first payout of $50.


2) Kontera - It may take as many as 5-6 more months before the Monetizer achieves their $100 threshold, but again nobody complains when getting some extra income. This is a PPC contextual advertising program and it's allowed to run with Adsense. Now this advertising program would earn better from high traffic sites, as John Chow makes mention of earning $1000 with this program in October 2007. Mr. Chow also explains how you can sign up for Kontera through him, even if you're a smalltime blogger. There have been some people who have complained Kontera hurts their Adsense earnings, but if you're doing things right and well, having additional moneymakers can never hurt. Kontera is an easy way to add another steady moneymaker to your site.

ATP - Within the next 5 to 6 months unless a traffic explosion occurs.

3) Squidoo - This one allows you to set your threshold wherever you want it, even like a dollar payout. Monetizer's is set to $10, and I'm over halfway there. The earnings come via shared revenue from the site's Adsense ads they run, or if you place Ebay, Amazon and other products on your site that are purchased. You get more of the share of Squidoo's Adsense earnings the more successful your Lens pages are. The share amount is based on another one of those formulas where we all get to wonder about how they divvy it up. It's a fun site though and most likely you can earn well by placing referrals and affiliate links on your Squidoo lenses (such as Clickbank below). So merely looking at the Squidoo earnings you get a share in won't tell you the whole story of how much money you've made from the site. Monetizer had a successful campaign though and nearly hit the top 100 Squidoo lenses (maxed out at #122). This may mean the revenue share achieved for October pushes Monetizer to the payout threshold of $10.

ATP - Maybe this month or next? Overall it took a good 4-5 months with several lenses to generate just $5-10 (plus a Clickank sale shown below). Getting your lenses a lot of traffic and ranked in the top 100 lenses can definitely bring you a higher revenue share on the site though.

4) Clickbank - This is a moneymaker the Monetizer hasn't discussed much yet, but one that many people swear by. Clickbank allows you to pitch and promote affiliate programs of all types from downloadable e-books on making money to diet programs to memberships for MP3 and movie sites. You earn a commission sometimes as much as 75% of the product price. Referring back to Squidoo, Monetizer hadn't tinkered with Clickbank's affiliate program all that much beyond sticking some links on Squidoo lenses. Lo and Behold on a random log in, a sale had been made with a commission of $26 for a product.

The sale came from a link placed on a Squidoo lens nonetheless, and the product wasn't even heavily promoted there beyond a link and simple line description. Now the caveat with this is that Clickbank would pay that $26 out if it had been a PayPal purchase. However, they seem strict with paying out for Credit card transactions and have a rule indicating you need at least one Mastercard and one Visa transaction and a total of 5 credit card transactions to get a payment. If you get a PayPal buy though, you're good. Monetizer added several more links onto Squidoo lenses just to see what it may bring, as the Clickbank affiliate site has been touted by many all across the net as a great way to get income.

ATP - Could be next month, or could take a few months depending on how much more the Monetizer tests this one out. However with enough work and effort put into this one, the Monetizer can see and has seen others talk about its ability to provide a nice online income.

To sum things up, the four moneymakers above are ones that the Monetizer has not spent a lot of time testing and tweaking, with maybe the exception of AuctionAds. However they should be paying out in the future and Monetizer never turns down extra income. Squidoo and Clickbank definitely appear to be some interesting moneymakers, as they could bring you some great passive income when you're least expecting it. Kontera and AuctionAds are great secondary moneymakers to use along with the granddaddy of them all, Adsense. Depending on how much work and effort you put in, you could see even better results yourself with any of these four.

(Note: The Monetizer plays to audition again for PayPerPost as of November 6th, the official 90 day anniversary of this blog)

A Youthful Attitude = Moneymaking?

How many times have you seen those lemonade stands as you're driving down a backroad on a hot, sunny day? Perhaps you even stopped out of admiration for the kid's entrepreneurial spirit and spent a buck or two just to make them feel richer (or you really were thirsty). Maybe you even had your own stand when you were a kid and made a few bucks and felt like King of the World from it. Or maybe you had other business ventures as a kid such as snow shoveling or mowing your neighbors' lawns. The Monetizer recalls having his parents buy candy in bulk from those wholesale warehouse places and then selling it to sweet-tooth kids on the school bus. I was making money, based on the resale and the fact I never bought the candy in the first place :) It's that sort of young, entrepreneurial mindset that can really take your places though. Some have even found income-producing and easy ways for kids to make money for themselves.

How about the kid who earned $20 an hour from a lemonade stand? Yes it's true, Tyler Dikman was able to do that, and now he runs a few multi-million dollar companies, including CoolTronics a company that helps deliver and setup computers. He bought a Rolex and Infiniti J30 using cash, and hired a maid to clean his room while he was just a teenager in high school. What makes him so impressive is that he went above and beyond the typical lemonade stand, using techniques such as dressing up the stand itself to make it even more attractive, offering other items for sale such as Cracker Jacks and a Gumball machine, and offering diet/low cal varities of lemonade for sale. He had the mindset to go with new ideas and expand upon something simple. You can see just how smart kids are some times.

Monetizer mentioned a few good books to read by younger business minds back from the Monetizer's Recommended Reading List. One is Cameron Johnson and the other is Farrah Gray. Two more examples of young moneymaking prodigies. Cameron was setting up his own stationary business and selling Beanie Babies in bulk out of his parents' home. Farrah was selling painted rocks as doorstops door to door in his neighborhood, then developed a business group for kids, followed by speaking engagements. These kids knew the art of business and networking and had a creative passion that drove them to succeed. These stories always interest the Monetizer and you can definitely take valuable lessons away from them. Most importantly is the notion that kids tend to have a more carefree, creative energy than most adults do. To expand on that, a child will put creative ideas into practice that maybe us adults are too serious and wound up to come up with or even try. It speaks a lot to the idea of "being a kid at heart".

This post was written based on seeing the Donny Deutsch "Big Idea" video over on John Chow's post. There's more than just a few of these type stories though and we can all take a page from these kids' books to set our own moneymaking ideas into full gear. Don't abandon your own creative ideas, even if they seem preposterous, because we're all really kids at heart. It's that creative energy and passion that can really provide the basis for some fun-filled and great moneymaking ventures.

Blogging Zoom - Explode Your Blog Traffic!

One thing the Monetizer is always looking for is free and effective ways to promote blogs which in turn will help to generate more traffic, readers and subscribers. Thanks to Courtney Tuttle and crew, a new site has been unveiled that will help you do that, known as Blogging Zoom.

So what is Blogging Zoom? It's a social media/bookmarking site like Digg.com, but its better because it's built just for us bloggers. In fact, the only members allowed to join and use Blogging Zoom are blog owners. It's primarily aimed at helping bloggers get noticed so they don't have to fight with the big social media products such as Digg.com to get that much needed attention. You can submit your blog entries much like you do to other social sites, and receive "Zooms" rather than "Diggs". However, Zooms are coming from fellow bloggers.

Some of the great advantages you get with Blogging Zoom:

- You won't be penalized for submitting your own content, meaning you can submit your best blog entries to the site. You won't need to worry about being buried or ostracized like Digg might do to you (as long as you're not spamming on Zoom).

- Blogging Zoom is built for blog owners and nobody else. So if you dont have a blog you won't be a member. Bloggers tend to have each others' backs.

- The creators/owners of Blogging Zoom are SEO experts who will use that knowledge to help increase traffic and search engine rankings which can help your blog a LOT.

- Blogging Zoom will work diligently to report and eliminate Spammers. Technorati and Google Blog Search tend to be flooded by spam, but Blogging Zoom will not be.

- It provides you with a community to network with other bloggers. Remember the ideas of finding blogs relevant to yours so you can network, leave comments, gain backlinks and secure guest posters? Blogging Zoom should present some great opportunities to do all of those things.

It always remains to be seen what sorts of results you will get from a new site like this one but so far it's had a good amount of buzz. Blogging Zoom is in its infancy, but seems to be having positive reports already. Cash Quests blog has reported already that since joining it's given a nice traffic boost to the site. Courtney reported in a recap of Day One that the signups and visits to Blogging Zoom have been spiking upwards. By the way, Courtney really knows about SEO, blogging and internet marketing with experience working at an internet marketing firm, and runs quite the blog site as well. So the Monetizer has full faith in this new concept Courtney has helped launch for our benefit.

It really makes sense to get in on a free blogger-driven community like Blogging Zoom if you want to take your blog to new levels and gain traffic and readers. The Monetizer recommends signing up and submitting a few of your best recent or past blog entries to the site and see how it goes...It could prove smart to get in early on something like this, because it looks like it will grow into a very nice and helpful community for us bloggers.