Amazon Income Update

In the last quarter of 2006, I started trying to use Amazon to monetize my sites.  I earned a whopping $6.00.  It took me a whole four years to earn $1.72 and another 5 months to earn 16 cents.  I gave up on Amazon.  I couldn't understand how people could earn so much money using this.  I knew it had to be more beneficial to use in affiliate marketing because they offer so many different products.  I just couldn't figure out how to make money with Amazon.

Last year, I read an ebook that explained how you can build free Squidoo lenses and monetize them with your own Amazon affiliate link.  Before reading this ebook, my Squidoo earnings were nothing to brag about.  I earned most of my Squidoo money through affiliate networks (such as CJ and Share A Sale).  I also earned commissions for referrals to different sites.  Even though I had a lens that ranked #2 on the site, the Squidoo payouts were not spectacular.



This week I am happy to share three goals I have achieved:

1. SALES:  I had 51 sales in one day on Amazon.
2. REFERRAL RATE:  My Amazon referral rate will be 7% tomorrow.  
3. EARNINGS:  March will be my highest earning month so far.

I haven't made any jaw dropping earnings like others I have seen online, but my earnings have steadily increased.  Obviously, the steps I am taking are working.  

If you want to know what I am doing to increase my earnings on my Squidoo, blogs, HubPages, etc read my Adsense Income update.  

Take the time to build backlinks or outsource your link building.  It will help you get more targeted traffic and increase your earnings!

Have a question?  Ask me in the comments.  I'll be more than happy to answer them.

:)

Adsense Income Update

Several months ago, I shared about my experiment to increase my adsense income.  After creating backlinks to several pages on one of my blogs, I doubled my google adsense earnings in one month.  The next month I made three times the amount I started with.  I managed to earn close to $400.00 in one month.  I decided to see what would happen if I stopped posting any new content or building any links.  I'll let you know what happened as well as the places I used to build the links.

There were a couple of things that I did before I started building links.

• changed the layout of the site
• added more adsense modules
• added more ways to earn money when ever possible (such as Amazon)
• interlinked related pages

I used the following sites for the adsense experiment:

Redgage is free to join and it's also a money maker!  You can earn money from views that your content receives.  You can also earn money from bonuses for popular content or by winning the daily raffle (3 ways you can enter).  I won the raffle and received a redgage visa card with my earnings.  Haven't used it yet.  :)

Automatic Backlink Creator is a wordpress plugin that builds links automatically.  How?  You upload the wordpress plugin on one of your wordpress sites and you can build backlinks on autopilot to any of your money sites including other blogs, squidoo lenses, hubpages, infobarrels, etc.  It's a simple process too.  You add the url, three anchor texts and a description.  These will be rotated on a network of blogs as a link on the    home page.

Ping.fm is a free service that anyone can use to post to several social media sites simultaneously.  It takes a little time to set up all the accounts, but it's worth it.

Backlinksindexer is a service that builds backlinks to your backlinks.  The only thing you have to do is copy and paste each backlink that points to your site.  They do the rest.  Every backlink that is indexed improves your serps.  You can get a free trial just to test it out.  I tried it and it was successful, so I subscribed.

These four sites were the main methods I used to create backlinks, but I also posted new content regularly.  The results?

• I had multiple $25.00 days.  
• My amazon earnings increased.
• Revenue from other sources such as Amazon also increased.

What happened when I stopped adding new content and building links?

It took several months, but my earnings fell below $100.00 again.  I am sure that if I had continued to build links to my old content (that didn't have any backlinks) I would have maintained the earnings.  

I am glad that I ran this experiment.  Now I know that one of my simple blogs can earn about $400.00 in one month.  Those keywords don't even pay as much as the keywords on this site.  I wonder how much I can earn with this one?  I'll keep you posted.

By the way, I have an update concerning my Squidoo money.  I am going to finish sprucing up the post and will auto post it in the near future.  I just started working on increasing my HubPages money too...

PayPerPlay: Get Paid for Your Traffic!

There's a new way for bloggers to monetize their blogs. How would you like to get paid for your traffic? The NetAudioAds Group have pre launched their new PayPerPlay advertising program. Usually, I wait until I receive payment before writing about a site, but this time I decided not to wait. Why? The earlier you get into this program, the more money you may make.

What is PayPerPlay?
It is a five second audio commericial that automatically plays when a visitor enters your site. (For a sample of what the ads sound like, follow the link above.)

How does PayPerPlay work?
After registering and being accepted into the program, you receive a java script code that you embed into your blog or site. Everytime someone visits your blog, you make money.

Are there other ways that you can earn through PayPerPlay?
There are three ways that can make money.
1. You earn money for every visitor.
2. You earn residual income from every direct referral's visits.
3. You earn residual income from the next level of referrals too.

How much money can you make from your traffic?
The site says you will be able to keep track of your earnings through the stats page on their site.
Here's the breakdown of the earnings:

25% of what the advertiser spends on PPP ads you serve on your own website(s).

5% of what the advertiser spends on PPP ads played on the website(s) of those you refer.

5% of what the advertiser spends on PPP ads played on the website(s) that your direct referrals bring on board.

What kind of ads will be displayed?
You'll be happy to know, you will never have any hate, pornographic, or subversive ads played.

How do they determine which ads are appropriate to my site?
PPP's technology crwals your content, much like Google's spiders. They will only serve ads that relevant to your blog or site.

PPP will try to serve niche specific ads but if one is not found it will play a general ad that would be appropriate for any niche.

Is this opportunity open to anyone in the world?
PPP states they are open to bloggers and webmasters all over the world!

I know some of you think this is a great opportunity, but you don't know how to increase your traffic. Well, I have written a few posts about increasing your traffic using email lists, ptrs and more. For an excellent way to use social bookmarking sites to incrase your traffic, read How I Quadrupled My Blog’s Traffic In 3 Months written by Mert Erkal at Search for Blogging. He's written a step by step guide that is easy to understand and simple to follow.

If you liked this entry, don't forget to bookmark and stumble it!

Monetize Your Blog With Kontera!

I've been reading about Kontera for some time now. I didn't sign up because I didn't think I would be accepted into the program. Well, the Law of Attraction kicked in!

As I often say, I receive lots of email. I received an email from a Kontera representative in the beginning of June and I didn't even see it. This week I was going through my Squidoo lens email to answer them on this blog. That's when I found the email. It came at the perfect time. They asked me to sign up to start running some ads on my site. What?! I was ecstatic and ready to put the code on. Unfortuantely, I had a lot of running around to do. Today, I put the code on the blog. This is the funny part. The site sets you have to give the code at least a week to start serving up relevant ads. When I put the code up, the correct ads came up immediately! Lucky me.

So, when you see the double underlined words, you will know it is an ad. I'm hoping that Kontera will replace the income I lost when I took off the Adsense. Adsense was paying for my minivan payment every other month!

What is Kontera?
Kontera is an easy way to monetize your blog. Aftr being accepted into their program, you place a special code they supply on your blog/site.

What does Kontera do?
Kontera serves contextually relevant ads on your site. They appear as a double line under specific keywords purchased by the advertisers. When a reader clicks the underlined word, you earn revenue.

How does Kontera pay?
Once you reach $100.00, you will will receive a check in US Dollars.

When will they pay?
Kontera pays within 30 days after the end of each calendar month that ContentLink ads are running on your site (if your earned balance is US $100 or more).

Good luck!

Monetize Your Blog With The NewsRoom

The News Room is an excellent way to share great content with your readers and monetize your blog. When I read about The NewsRoom, I decided to test it on a different blog I'm keeping. The blog is a celebrity gossip blog. The NewsRoom is a perfect fit for all types of blogs. They have political news stories, celebrity gossip, financial news and international affairs.

How can I monetize my blog with The NewsRoom?
The NewsRoom provides hundreds of licensed news stories from many sources including Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Press. Whether you are blogging about a political news story, celebrity gossip or personal finance-you can find a related story. Once you choose an appropriate story, you "mash" the story onto your blog/site. What is "mashing"? It is the process of copying and pasting the code that appears as a widget on your site. As your readers view the story, you earn money.

What other ways are there to earn money with The NewsRoom?
The content is "mashable". What does this mean? Readers can take the news clip from your site and put it on theirs. When the content is viewed on their site, you earn revenue too! They have video feeds, video stories, text and images.

How much do I earn?

Each time news content mashed from TheNewsRoom is viewed on your site, you'll earn a guaranteed CPM (cost per thousand impressions). You'll also earn money when someone mashes content from your site and it is viewed on theirs.

You earn $4.00 CPM on video feeds viewed on your site and $1.00 CPM on content "mashed" by your readers. You earn $3.00 CPM on video stories viewed on your site and $.50 CPM for mashed content on your readers' sites.

How do I get paid?
Currently, payments are made by check once you reach the $50.00 minimum payout. They plan to use paypal in the future.

This is a great way to provide fresh content and make some revenue too. Sign up and start making money today!

Click on the widget and see how it works. This story is unbelievable. Someone places a 911 call because a woman is dying in a hospital while the medical staff do nothing to help?!?

CBClicks: Another Way to Monetize Your Blog!

Some of you might have noticed the CBClicks banner on the lower right hand side of the blog. CBClicks is a fairly new service that is a great way to monetize your blog without jeopardizing your Google Adsense account. Ever since I earned the $90.61 with ClickBank (without any work on my part), I've been researching ways to make money using them. That's when I found this new program.

CBClicks is an unobtrusive way to monetize your blog. All you have to do is add the code to your blog. You can add it as a banner, an exit pop up or a modal pop up. Before you add the code to your blog, you get to choose categories that pertain to your site's content. This is great because it will only show ClickBank products that your base readers may be interested in. It works like Google Adsense in a way, except it's commission based and viral. How is it viral? When you sign up your Clickbank ID Number is in position #6. As you refer other people to CBClicks your ID moves up in position. Here's the breakdown from the site:

You Signup to CBClicks - Your Clickbank® ID is in #6 position on your website.
You refer "John" to CBClicks - Your Clickbank® ID is in #5 position on John's website.
John refers Sue to CBClicks - Your Clickbank® ID is in #4 position on Sue's website.
Sue refers Mary to CBClicks - Your Clickbank® ID is now in #3 on Mary's website.
Mary refers Bob to CBclicks - Your Clickbank® ID is now in #2 position on Bob's website.
Bob refers Matt to CBClicks - Your Clickbank® ID is now in #1 position on Matt's website

It's new on the net, so signing up early is a good idea. It may be a huge hit and you'll be on the top. Only time will tell. I decided to try it out. I'll never know if it works, if I don't try it. Right? You can click on the banner to look at some stats they provide on the site.







Related Sites:
Make Money Online
How to Get Traffic to Your Blog or Site
Affiliate Marketing 101
How to Monetize Your Blog