Do you love to write about anything and everything? More importantly, do you love to write and get paid for it? Many budding freelance writers are selling their wares on the internet these days through many different types of outlets. They might sell to individuals, companies, or even websites that deal exclusively with buying content. Below are a few sites to take a look at that will buy your writing, and provide a chance for a nice residual income for years to come.
AssociatedContent.com is a great place to submit articles for the starving freelance writer. Basically, you write an article about a subject, product, or service, create an account at AC, and after creating your writers profile, you can start submitting all of the articles you wrote for payment! There are two different ways to get paid by Associated Content.
1. Up-front payment - Most people submit for the up-front payment option simply because they are looking to cash in on an article as soon as possible. The up-front payment system is great, but don’t expect huge returns on your articles. The terms state that they pay anywhere from $3-$20 per article (has to be at least 400 words), but most AC content writers know that the average you’ll get per article is in the $4-$7 dollar range. It’s not bad, and if you were to submit multiple articles a day, it could mean a nice amount of part-time income each month. Keep in mind that it could take up to two weeks for an article to be approved, offered on, and published, so plan accordingly.
2. Performance Bonus - Submitting articles for performance bonus means that you get paid per 1000 page views on your article. As of this writing, the current amount per 1000 page views is $1.50. There are some writers on Associated Content that make upwards of $1000 a month just on performance bonus alone. If you submit for up-front payment, you automatically are eligible for performance bonus on top of that, but the wait time is longer to get approved. If you submit for just the performance bonus option, you can have your articles instantly approved so you can start racking up the page views.
Again, there are writers for Associated Content (which technically, are called content producers) that earn, at the very least, a part-time monthly wage from their submissions. Some content producers earn even more, and use AC as their major income stream. This takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but if you enjoy working at home and writing, it may be a way to escape from the cubicle if you have the self-discipline to keep up with it. If you want to make really good money and possibly work full time for AC, plan on being able to submit around 10-20 articles per day. It’s a lot, but it can really pay off in the long run.
Another site that worth mentioning that will pay you for your writing is Helium.com. While they don’t offer up front payments, the cool thing about Helium is that they tell you what they want, so it’s less of a guessing game than writing for Associated Content. Helium pays you strictly based on page views, so the better you are at promoting your articles, the more money you stand to make. Like AC, there are writers for Helium that are making well into the $x,xxx’s per month. It takes time and dedication, but it can be done if you stick with it.
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The Web 2.0 Summit is the gathering of the best developers in the internet that deals with Web 2.0 sites. The summit gathers experts in the technology that are related to these services. If you’re not familiar with Web 2.0, it’s a term described to websites that depend on user generated content.
One of those websites is Flickr.com. It’s probably the biggest photo-sharing website with users and hits that reach millions daily. Users will be able to upload their pictures for free and share them to friends. If you have a website, you’ll be able to use Flickr.com as your webhost for photos. You can also tag your pictures and compare them to other pictures with the same tag.
In the Web 2.0 Summit, Flickr.com has announced two key updates that should be implemented in a few weeks time:
The first update is the total revamp of the maps page. Right now, users will be able to use the maps page and see pictures taken in that place. You can see little pink dots and click on those dots to see the photos uploaded by different users. The new update will revamp this experience. Once the changes are implemented, the map’s page is guaranteed to load faster. That’s something everyone can thank for since as of this writing, pages have to load again and again before you can get the results you want.
The next update of Flickr is the new tool related to maps. The world of geotagging (tagging photos with places so they can be uploaded in the map), has become so complicated you can’t really see picture uploaded by other users. There will be a new classification in geotagging in Flickr: instead of places, they photos will also be categorized according to events. For example, users don’t just tag photos for New Orleans but also the events such as the Mardi Gras. That’s why Flickr.com will categorize the New Orleans photos and create another sub-category for events. Just give Flickr.com a few weeks and the new geotagging service will be available.
While you’re waiting for the new update of Flickr.com, give yourself a few things about geotagging. As a traveler, the last thing you wouldn’t forget to bring is your digital camera. All these traveling are for nothing if you don’t have a camera as a reminder and documentation that you were actually there. For bragging rights, you could show these to your friends and everyone else in the internet world. In flickr.com when you “geotag” your picture, it’s not going to show up from where you are but the picture will show up from where you’ve taken the shot. If you’re from Florida and have taken pictures of the Empire State Building, if searchers will go to Flickr’s map, they will see your photos posted in the map of New York and not in Florida.
For now, the Maps are not really that user friendly. If your internet connection is not that fast, expect the page to load real slowly. However, great things are coming so just hold on tight as Flickr.com will present a better and faster service…all for free.
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Linkbaiting is an online strategy to attract links from other web sites to yours. The idea is to use some type of compelling content on your web site that other webmasters will want to link to. Those who perfect the art of using linkbait often see hundreds or thousands of links to their site from a single unique article, image, video or other type of content.
Why are backlinks so important? The more links you get to your web site, the more traffic (surfers) you will get as well. And the more traffic you get, obviously, the more money you can make. And it’s not just webmasters who are using linkbait; bloggers have jumped on the linkbaiting bandwagon, and even YouTube and MySpace users have gotten in on the act.
So if you have a web site, blog, or even a MySpace page, how can you attract lots of links (and Web surfers) to your page using linkbait? Here’s how it works:
The most common kind of linkbait is the humble article. Articles that work best as linkbait have a few similarities. First, they must be current. Second, they need to have an air of controversy or immediacy about them. And finally, a successful linkbait article must be unique. When these three parameters fall into place, the results can be amazing, and you can wind up getting an avalanche of traffic to your web site, blog or MySpace page.
A good example of linkbait is in the now ubiquitous Apple iPhone. In the lead up to the iPhone’s launch, there was intense interest in the phone, so any article that mentioned it had at least some appeal.
But the best iPhone articles, that went on to become great linkbait, were not just about the upcoming launch of the iPhone; they also had something controversial about them–perhaps an outrageous claim about an iPhone feature, or a rumor about a feature it would not include.
And of course, the best iPhone linkbait articles were also unique. After all, it’s no good simply writing about something that is current and controversial if everyone else is doing the same thing. That’s a sure-fire way to ensure your article gets buried amongst an avalanche of related content online.
Of course if you’re not a fantastic writer, you can always find a writer online to help you write your linkbait article. If you really want to attract the greatest number of the backlinks to your site, it is imperative that you have a professionally written article that is current, controversial and unique.
This combination has proven to be irresistible as linkbait, and can even attract links from the “big boys” online, such as Yahoo, CNN or other established portals.
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The digital revolution has touched nearly every part of society and nowhere is this truer than in the media and publishing industries. Fewer and fewer consumers will actually buy a physical CD of music for example, opting to simply download MP3s online from iTunes, Amazon.com, or any number of other digital music portals.
Likewise, films are increasingly being rented and watched online, without having to be made into DVDs or other video formats. For example, Netflix has recently introduced a “watch online” feature allowing subscribers to view thousands of available films, documentaries and television shows “on demand” on their computer.
But one area of the publishing and media business that has so far failed to adapt to the new digital world is the printed word. Hard and soft cover books are more popular than ever, and attempts to mass-market e-books, or digitized versions of books which can be read on a computer, have so far not sparked the imagination of the public at large.
While it is true that e-books continue to sell very well when he comes to very specific, nonfiction information, such as how-to guides, the public has so far not responded well to buying e-books of novels or other modern literary works.
But Amazon.com chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, wants to change all that. Bezos considers hard and soft cover books to be relics of a bygone age, and would like to see e-books replace standard tomes the same way that MP3s are replacing CDs.
To help bring about this paradigm shift with the buying public, Amazon.com is unveiling a brand new handheld book reader called “Kindle.” The idea is for Amazon’s new Kindle to do for digital books what the Apple iPod has done for digital music — make it accessible, mainstream, and above all else, cool.
The Kindle is a portable, mobile hard drive that will hold about 200 books, and is connected to the Internet via Sprint’s high-speed cell network, allowing users to search and download any book available online in just a few seconds. Kindle will be roughly the size of a paperback book, and display book pages on a backlit LCD that appears more like a standard paper page than a computer screen.
The Kindle’s official release date is November the 19th, and it will be available for sale on Amazon.com for $399. The real question is, will die-hard book lovers be willing to trade in their old paper tomes for a newfangled backlit e-book reader?
Amazon.com is betting that, given time, downloading books to a personal reader will become as commonplace as downloading digital music to an iPod — and just as profitable.
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I bet you’re wondering just what the term “bum marketing” is, aren’t you? It sounds like it might even be unethical or blackhat, but I assure you, it’s not! It’s a perfectly ethical way to make extra money on the internet, and in this article, I’ll go over the basics to get you started on the track to earning extra cash using bum marketing techniques.
The term “bum marketing” was originally coined due to the fact that it’s so easy, and free, that even a bum could do it. Bum marketing, in a nutshell and in its most basic form, includes the following steps:
- Write an article about a specific niche or area with relatively low competition.
- Plan to submit the article to a popular article directory.
- Include a link to an affiliate product in your author’s resource box.
- Have the said link point to a page within your site, or another landing page with a review of the affiliate product and the affiliate link to it.
- Cross fingers, and wait for Google to pick up the article.
- When people search Google for what you wrote about, they get sent to your page.
- Hopefully, the visitor reads the review, clicks the affiliate link and buys the product or service, earning you a commission.
The above steps are a very basic outline of what bum marketing involves, and many, many pages could be written on this highly popular form of internet marketing.
The key to success with bum article marketing is writing articles that involve a niche/product/service that has the least amount of competition as possible. This may be easier said than done, but every day, someone is releasing something new. Be the first to talk about it, sign up for their affiliate program, write an article on it, and submit to Google. The reason that articles get picked up in Google (besides the fact that Google loves unique content) is because the bigger article directories (like ezinearticles.com) have high PageRanks and depending on what you wrote about, can usually muscle the article right up the ladder when it comes to search results.
Example scenario: I find someone that wrote an ebook that shows you how to breed “exotic widget fish.” The first thing I would do, assuming they have an affiliate program, is sign up as an affiliate, and start pumping out articles on the techniques to breeding exotic widget fish. Utilizing my existing site (if you don’t have one, sign up for a free blogger.com blog) I would write a few reviews on the widget fish ebook, and include affiliate links to the actual ebook sales page. I would submit my article to a big article directory, and in my resource box I would include a link to my page that reviews the ebook. After a few days, my article would appear on the first page of Google when people search for information on “exotic widget fish,” and with any luck, they would see my site, click on it, read the positive reviews on the ebook, click the affiliate link, and buy it!
You would be shocked if I told you how easy this was. If you can pump out 3-5 articles a week, utilize the above steps, you could honestly start making a terrific residual income that could last for years to come.
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There are practically thousands of video sharing websites to choose from. Each of them has their own good and bad, but all of them have something different to offer. There may be sites that practically copy the domain name of popular video sites but they offer different types of videos. If you’re on the lookout for another video sharing site for whatever reason, here are some sites that you can check out. You might see the next big internet star in some of these sites.
Blinkx.tv– If you love sharing videos, blinkx.com is your site. With this free account, you’ll be able to watch and share videos all you want. The home page looks like a search engine for videos and there are clips that will link you to other sites. You can search for a term or an item. Then links from television networks or a video sharing site will show up. Aside from the links, a mini-clip of the actual video is shown so you know what you’ll be seeing in advance. You can even drag and drop the preview to their video player to watch the mini clip. The best part is, you can even earn just by sharing videos. All you need to do is embed a video. Blinkx will attach some ad in the video. When the customers click on the ad, you share the earnings with the website 50/50. Once you reach $20.00 in earnings you’ll have the option of cashing it in via PayPal.
BlabberMash.com – If you’ve got a problem, why not ask for advice online? Instead of writing it, why not post a video about it? BlabberMash.com hosts videos of individuals who have problems in love, life, family or anything related to that topic. If you’re not comfortable with posting videos, you can use fix8 to cover your face so that an avatar will show up instead of your face. Once your videos are posted, people could rate the problem by “trash” or “mash.” You can also share you videos in your own website or blog. The downside about the site is in the responses. Instead of another video for response, a simple text answer is listed below the video.
Blinkbox.com – First of all, this site is not the same with Blinkx.tv. Blinkbox.com is an innovative website that lets you create your own videos online. But instead of uploading videos online, select from hundreds of movie clips and edit them online. Most of the clips are two minutes long but the longest you can do is one minute long. There’s not much you can do to the videos except to add some captions. Once done, you can download the video or share it with other people. The only downside is you need to sign up to even watch the videos. The homepage will just ask you either to register or to log in…nothing else. But signing-up is a breeze so you can go ahead and try the site. If you want to poke a little bit of fun to Bruce Lee or Mad Max, this site is perfect for you.
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There’s always something interesting that we can find online. It could either be about a new technology, update on popular software, or another website looking to start a little bit of online debate. Most of these sites have articles that give their readers a chance to make a comment or two and oftentimes we as a reader give our two cents worth of idea, hoping the author would read it.
Nowadays most of the online articles that we find on the Internet are soliciting comments. In previous years the only sites that we can comment on are personal blogs of other users. Now it’s even difficult to find a big website which does not encourage its registered users to comment on their featured articles. Maybe the writers wanted to see how they fare with the reaction of the customers. Forget about stars ratings, comments are more personal, and could give high praises as well as regular insult you hear everyday.
You can actually get your comment to the next level. Instead of lazily commenting on a site, you can track down how your comment will fare. As a webmaster, you can also track how many comments have been added on your site today. Here are some sites that offer tools to help you with your comments and track them if they solicit some reactions from other users.
1. Cocomment.com – The website has just released their version 2.0 based on the recommendations from their devoted users. Cocomment.com has become a powerful comment tool; it can almost be defined as a social networking website. With the new functionality, aside from tracking your comments in a certain site, you will also be able to see the latest comments of your friends, community and groups in a certain website. There’s also a side bar where you can track your comments without visiting the website. Anytime you want to comment on something and share the site to others, you can easily do that by activating the sidebar and adding the link so that it can be viewed by your friends.
2. Co.mments.com – The website is really easy to use. Once you sign up for their service, you can enter a certain blog and see how many comments were generated in each of the article written. You can add up to 30 websites to track at the same time. Although it doesn’t have any widgets to add to your browser, you can easily add a site to your online interface.
3. Commentful – Commentful is one of the products of blogflux.com. Commentful is a web-based software that can easily track any blog that you created or any site you find interesting. Even though it’s just a part of series of services, the interface is really impressive. Although all it can do is to check the number of comments on the latest article (that’s what happened in my blog), it’s still pretty useful. Commentful could even e-mail you the results generated by the software tool.
Sign up in one of these sites and enjoy unlimited tracking of your comments. Whether if it’s for business or personal use; these sites will definitely give you more than just a comment in your website.
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Working from home is quite difficult especially when you don’t have enough seed money to start with. Even though setting up a website is rather cheap and easy, there are so many things you still have to pay for if you want to excel in a home based business. For example, if you want to work from home as a virtual assistant, you still have to set up multiple phone lines for each of your client. You still have to pay the phone bills every month even if you don’t have any client on your own. If you’re really not that good in marketing, you end up with nothing – and losing even more in the process.
But don’t worry, there are actually things that you can do even if you don’t have any website, seed money or anything at all. All you need is a stable internet connection. If you’re thinking of blogging for AdSense and niche marketing that’s not it. It’s the idea of selling “what you know.” That’s right, selling the things that you know. In a world that’s overflowing with information, people wanted to learn the basics more than ever. The good thing about it is that they’re willing to pay for that information. If you have experience in the internet world or know a thing or two about a specific subject, check out these websites. These websites are like Bitwine only with variations.
Jyve.com – all you need to do is to go to Jyve.com and type in your question. Another page will load showing advisors who know a thing or two about the questions you ask. Don’t hesitate to ask anything as there will be advisers who will definitely answer your question. You can earn money out of this by creating an account and offering assistance for others. If the people who look for answers will be interested in your services, you can arrange a more personal interaction through Skype. Install the Jyve.com add-on in your Skype messenger and set the per-minute rate. You can pay Jyre.com as they automatically get 20% in your earnings. It could be too much but finding the client is easy as long as you are proficient in a certain subject.
Ether.com – the website lets you create an account for free and offer what you know online. After signing up, you’ll have your own phone extension from Ether.com. All you need to do is to set that extension to be transferred to your mobile phone or your personal land line - no need to set up a Skype account. Aside from giving good tips, you can also sell things that you’ve written online. If you’re great in writing help articles, instead of taking phone calls you can just write what you know and sell them. Ether.com takes 15% in either of services you earn from. You don’t have to be concerned with telemarketers from Ether.com since people who wanted your services have to pay first before they can actually call you. That means, when you receive a phone call from Ether.com, you’re already earning.
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Adult content website may be reeking in billions in revenue each year. But for start-ups, the challenge of creating an adult content website for profit is greater than regular online stores. It’s a highly specialized, and in this case, high risk business that could mean millions in profit or millions in losses at the same time. Before you go ahead and launch an adult content website, here are some of the hurdles you have to answer.
1. Legal Considerations – Don’t just think that a simple disclaimer will answer all your legal woes. The laws for adult content websites are getting tighter, and it’s just not enough to place a simple disclaimer. You have to look out for the content that you offer in your website. Rule of Thumb: no child pornography. Aside from moral considerations, it’s just way crazy to place underage online. Aside from the law, you’ll have the scorn of your regular customers who want watch anything except this type of things. Be on a lookout on what you place online. Research on the latest laws regarding adult content websites to know what is legal or not. If you have the budget, get a lawyer to check your web content and disclaimer.
2. Good Content – With so many adult content websites, you have to come up with something original. As much as possible look for a provider where they offer original content or you can even make a deal in having the exclusive rights in selling their videos online. Still think of legality in the way they make their videos. Better yet, create videos yourself. Aside from selling adult content videos, you can try your hands in creating them just to make sure you are offering something original and legal.
3. Merchant Account – surprisingly, your problem is not with the content but with the back-end operations for your website. Getting your website to accept credit cards will be very costly. Most merchant account providers don’t accept applications from adult related website. Even if they do, the rates in processing every transaction are very high. Before you launch your website, research extensively on these providers. There are actually merchant accounts that specialize in adult content websites. The rates are a little bit lower but still it’s not the same as for regular online shopping stores.
4. Hosting – Finding a web hosting company for your adult content is as difficult as finding your merchant account. Before you sign up for their services, always ask them if they can host adult content. Usually, these restrictions are placed in find print disclaimers. So before you know it, your website can be closed because you violated the web hosting policies. There are also web hosts that dedicate themselves to adult content but the prices are relatively higher.
Be sure to prepare for these challenges for creating adult themed websites. Like any other businesses; research, preparation and dedication is needed for success. Its one industry that will not fade for the next ten years but it still takes time to get a small piece of earning from the industry.
In each website, personalization is a key feature so that visitors will remember your site easily. Aside from creative pictures and colors, a button or a badge could be used to personalize your website. These buttons or badges can be used as a link to another site. These badges can also be added to other websites. It’s like your ID so that others will easily recognize you faster. It’s also a good link exchange tool if you want your page ranking increased.
In this post, I’ll give you sites where you can personally design your own badge. Although it has limitations but these limitations are used to standardize all buttons in one way or the other. Best of all their basic service for creating a badge in these sites is free.
Kalsey.com – Adam Alsey has created a very simple tool that lets you create a simple button. You will have two boxes to fill in your name. You can change the color of the boxes using the HTML code for colors. If you’re not familiar with the codes, you can just click on the little button on the left and select your preferred color. As soon as you hit “submit,” your badge will be displayed on top of the customization page. Just right click the image and save the picture manually.
Blogflux Buttonmaker - This button maker tool works like Kalsey.com. The interface is clearer and the charts are bigger. There’s also an additional option in getting a bigger badge. Instead of the regular 80×15 button you can get something bigger with the size of 88×31. It also has an option of saving the image manually or you can just click on “save image.”
Buttonator.com – The basic version of the Buttonator is free. For $10 a month, you can gain access with the latest button or badge design plus they will host the button for you. You can customize the block of your badge according to their present colors. You can even add a very small image to your button for example; if you want the button to signify that it’s a shortcut for a shopping cart, you can add a cart image in your badge. You can also change the font type, size and make as bold, italized or underlined letter.
Buttonboost.com – The website is quite crowded and complicated to understand from the start but the website completely free so you have all the time to use it. You can use the quick start functionality and get the button immediately. It might take you more than an hour to fully understand how it works but once you’re there, you’ll have unlimited options of badges for your site.
Buttonbrowser.com – It works just like the first two sites but it gives you the ability to upload the image in ImageShack.com and host the image for free. You can also select from six present font sizes. Just make sure the size that you specified fits in the box you created.
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