Focus Focus Focus

I have been conversing on a forum today and thinking about the way we approach online earnings. The conclusion I have reached is that we need to be able to focus on a few important avenues (rather than a whole load of different schemes) and then set some realistic goals. It is the goals idea that strikes me as being of fundemental importance.
It is very important not only to have a plan, but to have a means of measuring performance and a goal. I am currently floating three projects, an adsense-related project, a product that I want to promote and I am also interested in investigating writing as a means to generate income, through programs like Helium, Associated Content etc..
This is a lot to take on when there is a full-time job and a family to take into consideration, so it will be important to spend a little time planning goals and realistic timelines for each of these projects.

Methods of saving money

The recession may be over statistically, but the fallout has been considerable in terms of revenue lost and job cuts. Saving money has never been more important especially as having enormous debts is becoming less and less popular...
There are a stack of well-documented methods of saving money such as using comparison sites and looking for special offers, but one method that is often overlooked is online coupons such as nordictrack. This scheme provides discounts in the niche area of fitness products, and there are plenty similar coupon schemes in lots of different niches.
Beauty and fitness remains at the very top of our agenda even in the depths of economic crisis, so the idea of saving whilst you spend a little something on yourself should appeal...

What consitutes a good paid post?

It's all very well seeing paid posts as a means to generating income, but how can we generate income through paid posting, and do a worthwhile job of it too?
Today I am going to share some rules, and some hints (after all I have been doing this for three years now, I should either be getting good at it, or thinking about jacking it in!).

1. Rule number one is to read the requirements carefully, if it says three links, use three links. If you should be using anchor links, then make sure the anchors and the links are exactly as stated.
2. Rule number two is to write well, use good grammar and make sure you use a spell-check, you can get away with lousy posts in some cases because they are only looking for a link, but you will stand a better chance of being offered 'work' if you can demonstrate that you do a good job.
3. In a lot of cases, you don't need to even promote the product or service, they are only looking for an anchor link, you are free to express yourself so keep it real... There are some occasions when you will struggle to come up with an angle, but give it some thought and eventually you will probably come up with something that works and hopefully doesn't look out of place on your blog.
4. Use pictures where you can as long as the advertiser does not mind, in most cases, they will encourage you to use graphics and logos from their own website, as long as you are using your own words.

If you feel a bit of a cheat writing posts like this, then I came to terms with it this way: A paid blogger is like an actor doing a commercial voice-over, you are just giving life to someone else's sentiments, and you should do it in the best way that you can.

Function or Fashion?

I am a great believer in function over fashion as a rule - if it works, then that is more important than how it looks. However, once functionality has been established, we automatically tend to judge things very much on their appearance. Despite saying 'I just need something that gets me from A to B' most people have an idea of what cars they like based on what they look like rather than being concerned about mere functionality.
There is a difference between a sports shoe and a Christian Louboutin design, but you can walk down the road in either... and people will tend to treat you differently based on what you wear, or what you drive. Function fulfils your immediate needs, but fashion dictates what others will take away as a first impression, and you know what they say... 'First impression counts!'

Weight Loss

There is no doubt that there are plenty of good reasons for losing weight. Losing weight will probably mean a longer happier life, but there is an emphasis now on quick weight loss regardless of any longer term effects.
A change of lifestyle in terms of the introduction of regular exercise and a sensible diet is surely the best long term plan for losing weight. Fad diets won't have any effect five years down the line, and it is certainly not a good idea to take weight loss medication for the rest of your life...

Over forty..

Old age does not come alone so they say, and the current trend (if TV adverts are to be believed) is that getting wrinkles is some sort of social crime for which we should be truly ashamed. I am not particularly concerned about wrinkles or any other signs of old age, but for those for whom this is a real issue, the sheer amount of treatments available can make you dizzy. This is where the internet can do the work for you. Instead of waiting for the next advert (they do come along pretty regularly), you can research the products by reading wrinkle cream reviews, or reviews of any other potions or creams available to stem the aging process.
My stock answer is to say 'grow old gracefully' but as someone who is an ardent cream-and-potion user said "that's what I'm trying to do!"

How do I promote my blog?

This is a common question and one which is actually quite tough to answer. My first point is going to be that you need to grow your readership 'organically'. By this I mean don't go for one of those surf-exchange programs - they are pointless if you want to build up long-term readership. We are going to look at ways that will bring genuine readers to read your content.
The second point I am going to make is that before you think about promotion, for goodness sake have a blog that is worth reading otherwise you will be wasting your time dragging people in to read your bad content... Once you are happy that your blog is something that your potential readership will actually read, you are ready to start promoting:
1) SEO - people have written complete books on Search engine optimisation, but with just a few techniques, you can corner the market for your niche. Reading the articles on livewyre.NET on SEO techniques will equip you for basic optimisation which is probably covers 90% of total optimisation. For blogs, I would look to make sure that 'tags' are set within the blog template, and that all my titles are 'search engine friendly'. Look at this title for example 'How do I promote my blog' is a phrase that I anticipate may be typed into google frequently, and I stake my claim to that phrase by using it as a title. Beware of using titles such as 'search engine optimisation' because the competition for that phrase means that you will never get a result.
2) Links - backlinks are important, although I have seen that PageRank is not so important for Search engine results as it used to be...Links make up your PageRank and are helpful if not essential to get visitors. you can get free links from a number if directories, or you can canvass other sites to see if they will add your link in their sidebar or links page, but I get so many of these via email that I rarely even read them.. every so often though, if you are determined you may earn yourself a valuable link. I would not pay for links personally, but you may find that it is worthwhile.
3) Commenting - this is a free way of getting links from relevent web pages. Commenting on blogs within the same niche or on forums is a good way to get your link in front of people who may be interested in your site. Often news websites will also allow you to comment, but do remember not to waste your time on a site that does not allow your post your URL - many sites allow you to add your link and then link it to your name - so when someone reads the comment, they might click on your name and be taken straight to your site or a relevant article on your site. Even if the site is using 'no-follow- links to stop Google bots following links, you can still attract visitors by getting them to click on the link.
All-in-all, promotion can be hard work and building up visitors can take an awful long time - but in the long run, you should see your readership increase, and maybe even some of those readers will begin to read your RSS feed.

It is important (especially if people are reading your RSS), to keep fresh content on your blog, if you don't regularly update with new posts, your readership will drift away. You may define your own timeline by planning to update twice a day, daily or weekly -but whatever timescale you choose, your visitors will expect you to continue at that rate, so try to pick a pace that means you regularly update without making it too slavish a task. Work at your own pace, but once the pace is established, stick with it - and always have a post 'up your sleeve' for when you are running out of ideas. I sometimes post three or four posts and then date them so that they appear every few days so that I have some 'breathing space'. This is easy if you post several items in a mini-series (like this one... covering blog monetisation and promotion...) as you can write a large article and then split it up into smaller post-sized sections.

eBay guides

There are many ways to get your message across on the world-wide-web, and one of those ways which has been less than fully explored are eBay reviews. Sometimes, when you have bought a product on eBay, you are given the opportunity to review it, and there are thousands of valuable reviews in all sorts of interest areas.
I have been asked to review a hard-disk that I bought, but you will find things as diverse as a liporexall review, or reviews of video games, CD's and pretty much anything else you can think of.

Can you earn anything with a Blog?

It's a question that I see often, from both complete novices and also from those who have been blogging for a while but not thought about how to start monetising a blog. I just answered a question like this on a forum and that prompted me to think about monetisation.
I came up with three basic ways of monetising a blog:
1) Paid posts - the main focus of Munny4Hunny.com - the reason I started the blog was that I heard that you could make money with paid blogging and I wanted to find out if this were possible. Suffice to say that it is, although the online world has changed sufficiently for it to be less profitable now. Even after the peak of paid blogging, there is still a reasonable amount to be made, enough to buy yourself the odd treat from eBay...
2) Contextual adverts - Adsense is the king of contextual ads, but it could take a very long time to reach payout. In order to be successful with Adsense, you need several sites all displaying relevant adverts that you visitors are likely to click. To make people click, your ads need to be closely related to your content, ie. the ad content must be attractive to your visitors. To make money, you ideally need to be in a niche with a high CPC (cost per click) rate. If you get the combination right, you may reach payout on a monthly basis, but you will probably need several sites to do this.
3) Affilitates - like contextual adverts, these need to be closely related to the subject of your blog or site. Your ideal affiliate will fulfill the needs of many of your visitors. Most affiliates are selling a product, so ideally, this needs to be a product that your visitors will desire - some will play per click, but most pay commission per sale - and it can take a long time to come to fruition, nevertheless when it does, you tend to get a great return for very little effort.

Once your monetisation is in place, you will need to promote your blog - a subject which bears clarification (although I am sure I have addressed it any times before), but I will save my pearls of wisdom in this department for another post....

Embarrassing bodies

Embarrassing bodies is the title of a TV show currently showing in the UK, and the problems that people are willing to expose in front of cameras are often frankly shocking. A whole gamut of conditions and complaints that you would normally keep very well hidden are exposed for the world to gawp at. They have covered everything from simple hemorrhoids relief to odd-shaped body-parts, odour problems and severe skin conditions. The great thing about this program is that for those watching with similar ailments, they can get good advice in the privacy of their own home by watching the TV. More than that though, they also get the feeling that they are not the only ones who are suffering.

Showing your age

There is a whole industry devoted to NOT showing your age, an industry that produces face creams and treatments in a confusing array. We are left thinking 'Do any of these treaments actually work?' However, the more poignant question is maybe 'Does it matter?'
People seem willing to part with significant amounts of money to prevent the years from taking a visible toll. Certainly there is a medical need for people to get fit and lose weight, it is less certain however that there is an equal need to have less wrinkles...

The speed of weight loss

Whether you are looking to lose weight fast or over a longer term, there is no doubt that there are significant health benefits to controlling wieght and arresting weight gain. In a world that is becoming increasingly obese, it is only too obvious that we need to change our collective attitude to food and more significantly, to exercise.
There is a whole industry devoted to aiding weight loss, but it all boils down to a change of lifestyle ultimately.

Good and Bad Antivirus Software

I have a number of PC's that I use both at work and at home. In general I use two laptops for work and two desktops for home - there are reasons, but I'm not going to start explaining right now...
Anyway, my second work laptop is useful for doing certain tasks a lot better than my 'normal' laptop, so I kind of inherited it when someone left the firm. When I first got it, it had a 2006 copy of Norton Antivirus installed (not being updated, but I left it on anyway). I added some other security software so it would be safe to use and sure enough it worked OK for a while although every month it would try to persuade me to sign up for Norton again...
A few weeks ago I had it at home and Firefox stopped working, I tried IE, and that was still working until the next day when I got it back into work... after all sorts of windows updates and IE/FF re-installs I was getting nowhere. Never mind, Dreamweaver FTP was still working, so I could use it for that, and 'Radmin' was working (links to another PC via the internet). After a few days, FTP was no longer working and I am beginning to feel that this laptop is becoming increasingly useless, then I thought 'hang on - why don't I remove Norton?' so I tried uninstall - it wouldn't work, so I had to use my working laptop to browse for 'norton uninstall tool'. Eventually I found an up-to-date copy and Eureka! the problem was fixed and I was back on the 'net. Let that be a warning to Norton users... if you don't renew, Norton can screw up your PC...

Whilst I was browsing, I came across the new Microsoft Security Essentials - free software from Microsoft - yes FREE! from Microsoft!! for all those with a legit copy of windows XP/VISTA/7...
It is supposed to update itself with virus definitions, so you can just load it up and let it look after your PC without giving it a second thought. You get the usual warnings about possible conflicts with other software, but I have run it alongside Malware Bytes and AVG Free without any obvious issues yet.

So that's the good and bad of antivirus (Security Essentials also covers malware...), Norton is the badddie and Microsoft are the goodies...

Looking for work

Looking for employment is a difficult enough task at the best of times, the current economic climate makes it all the more difficult.
My (off-line) career has been very varied, but I have managed to stay employed in some capacity or other for all but a few weeks of my working life. I have found that temporary work is a good way into permanent employment, and would always seek to take any job whilst planning the next move rather than spend my time job-seeking during working hours.
My argument is that employers want to employ someone who is working (at least in some capacity) in preference to someone who is actually labelled as 'unemployed' especially as they length of that unemployment stretched from weeks into months.

January Earnings

At last!
I have completed my new reporting spreadsheet and I have a good report to share as my first of 2010, and the first in the new format which includes ALL my internet earnings not just blog earnings as previously. Also, to make the spreadsheet even more true to life, these are not potential earnings racked up in this month, they are actual amounts received, sometimes for activity within this month, sometimes for activity from the previous month or more.

I have included receipts and outgoings so that profit can be calculated, and this month has yielded a profit of £156 - note that I am also reporting in £UK instead of USD as previously.
Income was made up of £49 from blogging and £123 from my 'cassette to CD' site, outgoings are all from the cassette to CD activity.

New Camera

My camera packed up over Christmas, it was about four years old so I was not too upset about it, and in fact found a nicer (working) camera of very similar specifications and vintage on an internet auction site for just £5.50. However, imagine my surprise when a week later someone gave me a virtually new Samsung camera that they had no use for... I had done them a favour converting some old videos to DVD's, and they gave me the camera when they heard my old one was broken. I have kept the £5.50 camera and given the Samsung camera to my wife as she has never had a digital camera of her own (even though the Samsung is actually far better than my cheap camera).

Zip it up!

One of my favourite blog subjects is free software, over the years I have highlighted a number of freeware programs on Munny4Hunny.
I live (in a PC sense) by the creed that more or less any type of software you need can be found somewhere for free, and my latest 'find' has been a file zipping program which I have found extremely useful. One of my online activities involves converting analogue sound into digital format which tends to take up a lot of hard drive space especially after a few edits. I use a 500GB drive to store the files which holds a lot of data, but I also like to back everything up and my backup drive is only 250GB... My solution has been to 'zip' all my files and store the zip files as a backup - this has saved me approx 50GB of storage (both on my internal hard drive and my backup). I searched for some zip programs and a lot were limited trial, but 7-zip is totally free, and has lots of options for higher compression and even zipping to the exact size of a DVD for those who plan to back up onto DVD (where the resulting file will need to be fitted onto more than one disk), and as this is my ultimate goal, I can see how valuable this option is.
I would have liked a greater compression rate such as some of the RAR programs offer, but nonetheless, this software seems very easy to use and certainly does what I wanted and more...

St Valentines

St Valentines day approaches, and if you want to avoid your own personal massacre, you might be considering gifts for her or him...
Wine, chocolates, flowers and smellies are the staple supplies so why not use your imagination and come up with something original this year? Trinkets and jewelery needn't cost the earth, and will last a bit longer than chocolates (at least in our house where chocolates have a very short half-life)

Driving down costs

The US economy has officially risen out of recession and has now reported a growing economy for two consecutive quarters. The latest figures suggest a rapid rise, but this has to be seen against a background of more than 12 months of decline. This means that although we have seen the worst of the recession, we are still some way below the level we were about 18 months ago. The need to cut costs is still a reality for most families, and with competition keen, it is a good time to look for a lower life insurance rate, or loan rate or car insurance. Keeping outgoings at a minimum will help to keep your family afloat whilst the economy stabilises again.

Strategies

I am still thinking through my strategies for the coming year. January is a great time to review how you are going to progress with a project, and I really need to sort out where I am going with my online earnings. GoDaddy are great at forcing your hand by offering discounts, but because they do it all the time, you can always let a deadline for an offer expire, safe in the knowledge that there will be a new one along next week...
Currently, GoDaddy have an offer on '.com' domains, my problem is that I am not sure whether I want to go for .com when I am monetising my latest project through eBay - I have set my eBay widgets to UK eBay, so I probably want to concentrate on '.co.uk' domains. Maybe I should think about duplicating the site on a .com and put US eBay widgets on it??
I am thinking about dividing up one of my websites over several domains - this site has three distinct elements to it, so I am considering whether I should move some of the pages over to a new domain. Coupled with this, is my concept of moving all of my hosting onto a new multi-site hosting package which would open up a lot of new possibilities for me including free subdomains (in theory...).
I am spurred on by the GoDaddy offer to think out exactly which domains I need (or at least the closest available ones), and hopefully that will prove to be the incentive for getting things moving for my new hosting package - all of this would be so much simpler if I didn't have a full-time job and lots of other responsibilities to boot...