Saving money like mad

With access to the internet there is no excuse why you can't save money. The resources are out there if you only look. For example I found a website devoted to frugal living. It has subjects like how organizing your house and getting rid of clutter can save you money. The site even goes on to tell you that coupon clipping is not the way to save on your grocery bill. Lots of tips and hints on the site as well as many books on the subject. Check out Living on a Dime.

Link mania, or how to improve your Page Rank

I know how hard it is to just get a foot hold on the internet. I learned how to blog on one of those community blogs. It was fun for awhile until I wanted to venture out on my own. I found wordpress.com and started up a fun, not for profit blog there. I had fun with it and started up a few more on wordpress over the course of the next year. Some I continued with but most of them I shut down. I still have 2 very popular ones there. Each one has a Page Rank of 5 and 6 each. I get about 250-600 visitors a day on one of them, the other one only 100. Both of them popular but alas wordpress says I can't advertise on them or they will delete them.

So here is what I do, I write short blog posts on them directing them to one of my other blogs that I can make money on. That not only increases my Technorati rating with a backlink but will increase my Page Rank in the long run. The key is to link to blogs that have higher Page Rank than my blog has.

What if you don't have another high ranking blog? Simple find a blog that you enjoy reading and make a comment in their comments section. First check if the comment will allow a link back to your blog - some don't. Most of them link to your name or email and not your blog.

The cold hard facts about blogging

If you are writing a blog for your own entertainment or therapy then you'll just do fine by yourself. If you want fame or money via blogging here is a cold hard fact - you cannot do it alone. I am not talking about getting readers or visitors I am talking about networking with other people online. Readers and visitors will come but only if you have convinced them to visit because lots of other people do. Here is where you need to have lots of friends visit your blogs first.

The internet has become one great big community. Your blog should appeal to at least some small portion of the community. Join some ACTIVE message boards that you have an interest in. Become online friends with those people and then introduce them to your blog. Digg.com has a very active community where people will interact with others in promoting your blog or website. Join myspace and promote your blog to other "friends" you acquire there. The bottom line is you need to make friends online and lots of them to promote your blog. One MAJOR thing to keep in mind is NEVER but NEVER make your friendship into a one way street. If you ask someone to visit your blog or promote it offer to do the same thing for them.

My money making online adventure is almost on track

So far this month I have made $240.00 online. About $130.00 of that was from the sales of jewelry and books. The rest of it was from surveys, paid blog posts and Associated Content. None of the amounts include any money owed but not paid yet. There are some companies that owe me money but until they pay me I do not include those amounts.

I am almost on track of my goal of earning at least $10.00 a day online. Right now I am at $8.00 a day. I keep plodding ahead, my goal in sight now.

Contests and other ways to make money on line

I have a goal in mind when I try to make money online. Usually it is to pay for an expensive item for my computer or an electronic item such as a newer digital camera. My current goal is $10 a day and at that rate I should be able to fund 2 items that I need by the end of 40 days or so.

Another way would be of course to win those items in a contest but my luck has not been all that great lately. One such contest website to try for all of those things if that person feels lucky is bid 4 prizes. This site is unique in that you place bids on an item to win it, but it is the LOWEST bid that wins. Plus you don't use money to place the bids, just points that you don't even pay for. What is the catch? There always is one I know. The catch is you have to watch or see an advertisement before you place your bid - that's it. You can win large plasma TV sets or cars, laptops, cash and gift cards. You might want to check the website out. Who knows you might be lucky.

3 things NOT to do when starting your own business

So you want to start your own business? You know what you want to do and even have a business plan but are there anythings you should avoid doing? You bet there are.

1. Don't start your business with a credit card. You will never be able to tell if your business will be a success or not - so don't get into debt trying to start it.
2. Don't go it alone. Join your local Chamber of Commerce for added exposure of your business. Network with people either in person or online.
3. Don't give up. Many businesses took years to become highly successful. You can't be an overnight sensation unless you are famous to begin with.

New search engine, EarthFrisk.org

Here is another Search Engine to submit your website or blog, EarthFrisk.org. It promises to be a major rival to the other search engines. It combines all the other search engines into one convenient place so you can do a search over multiple search engines at the same time. What makes this search engine different is that they promise to weed out spam sites in the results.

A big plus for us bloggers is that this search engine also interfaces with StumbleUpon and Digg so that your blog will get much more exposure via searches than ever before.

Good blogs and bad blogs

While on the subject of writing a blog as a source of income I thought it would be a good idea to show what in my opinion are good and bad examples of blogs. They are in the good and bad categories not for content but for overall layout and appeal. First is my bad list:

• Probsmanuela This one looks like someone just copy and pasted someone else's work and didn't even bother to format it correctly.
• if I were a ... This blog has no entry dates so I don't know if the blog is old or new. Lots of Google ads.
• Timbaland Touting itself as a music blog there is almost no mention of music on it except for the Google ads. This blog is almost nothing but ads.

Now for my good list:

• The Gossip Hound Just a fun celebrity gossip blog. Layout is plain and simple. Limited ads. It is the type of blog that I am likely to visit more than once
• All the Critters Although this blog is a wordpress and they don't allow advertising it is a good example of a nice good blog.
• Ask Fisher This blog is a great example of a unique idea and nice layout

The Google bot

The Google bot has just visited this blog so I expect the blog to have a page rank in the next few weeks. One blog I started on the 5th of October 2007 already has a page rank of 1 but I don't have more than 10 posts on it. It is more of a fun thing that I did for Halloween.

Merry Christmas to everyone!!

Need help with your blog?

If you are just starting out blogging and don't want to wait a year or more to become popular (yes is can take that long and longer) I have a few tips and links for some very good technical information. As you blog you find that you need to be able to get visitors to read your blog. Without visitors you are just talking to yourself, and if that is what you want then so be it, but most of us want attention. Along with visitors and lots of them, you can make a decent living off of the advertising you can put on your blog, just like the magazines do, except you are paperless. I have had a blog over at wordpress for about a year now. It has taken that long to get to a Google PR (page rank) of 4. Along with that I have about 250-350 visitors a day and I get awards for my blog. Unfortunately wordpress.com does not allow you to put any type of advertising on their free blogs. So I have a very popular blog that makes me no money at all - sniff. I write a post on it about once every 3-4 days.

Thank goodness for blogger.com, here I can make money with my blog - and I do, but not so much with this one, it is my niche blogs that do it for me. As I write this post I have not even been ranked by Google yet but according to my statcounter the Google bots have been crawling the blog a few times a day! So I know that it has been indexed by Google and that is a good first step.

One of the major keys to having a good popular blog is to write for a niche group of people. If you have a hobby start a blog that covers that hobby. Don't write a blog about tech stuff if you don't know anything about it. Don't write a blog that is simply geared to make money blogging there are too many out there like that (this is one of those too many). If you don't know if your subject will be popular just make a blog and see. Don't forget to get a statcounter to load on your blog so you can see if you are getting any visitors.

There is a good video lesson plan that shows you how to write, market and make money from niche blogs. Don't be fooled by the title because is sounds like one of those get quick rich scams (I wish they had picked a better title but they had to pick the one they have to get high rankings with keywords - you'll learn all about that too) It is called Blogging for Riches

Another blogger has also a great lesson plan on his blog and it is free (my favorite price) but he does mention having several hundred blogs to make money. You can check out his lesson plan and see if you can use parts of it to promote your own blog. His blog is Making money for beginners. You have to scroll down the blog a bit, the lesson plan links are on the right.

I hope that is enough to get you started in the right direction.

Keywords to use in promoting your blog or website

Do you know what keywords to put in your website pages or blog posts to get people coming in from everywhere? You might know a few but I am going to list the words that have generated the most page views on this blog as well as my few other websites. Not only am I going to list them but let you know how to use them. OK so here is the list:

FREE
DOWNLOAD
MUSIC
SOFTWARE
GAMES
iPOD
MYSPACE
LAPTOP

You will notice that the word FREE is at the top. It is the most sort after item on the internet "something FREE". You can add that word in almost every title you have such as "free information on how to ........" or "where you can find free ........" or "Is there such a thing as a free .....?"

The next word is download. Almost everyone is looking for a download of either music, movies, videos, games or software. Add the word free in there and you have a killer title, but watch out - if you are not offering anything free then you will lose visitors faster than ever.

Now you can see the rest of the list as people are looking for iPODs and laptops - cheap. Myspace is unique in that people are looking for layout and graphics for their myspace layouts. I also have a link for myspace layouts for New Years Eve if you are interested, written by a friend and fellow techie.

There you have a rough breakdown of what words with attract your readers. Use them wisely and in the titles or first few sentences of your article or blog post. It will get noticed.

My blog is real!!!

I actually had this blog rejected by Pay Per Post because it was "a third party site with no real blog posts!" Here is what they wrote or should I say what was generated

"Thank you for your blog submission! Unfortunately, it appears that this blog is being kept up only for purposes of payment through our services and/or payment from online contests, lotteries, pyramid schemes, etc. It is in our advertiser’s best interest that we do not allow these types of blogs to take the opportunities in our Marketplace. But, feel free to use PPP Direct and the Affiliate tools! Thank you! "

Does anyone there even visit the blogs? I just sent a "support ticket" to them complaining about that fact. I wonder if they will even visit and read this!! I sure hope they do. I checked my stats and found out that I had no visitors from PPP, yes I can see who comes here and from where, so I know for a fact they never even visited the blog.

Now if you have ever visited one of "their members" blogs I can tell you they are nothing but advertising. Let's face facts here Pay Per Post is an advertiser that doesn't like advertising??!! Or are they just playing favorites? Give me a break! Here is one of them with ads up the ying-yang

While on the subject of paid blog posts, here is a company you might want to stay away from Bloggerwave. I joined them almost a month ago and still haven't heard when I will be paid my measly $10.00 for promoting their worthless site. Believe me there is nothing worse than a blogger spreading bad news about a company, cuz we can spread it fast. Lets' see if Pay Per Post is worth anything shall we? If I get a negative back from them you can rest assured that I will let the world know about it. I will even digg the story big time. I will also take any advertising or promoting off of this blog and any mention of them from past blog posts.

Getting paid from your website

So you have your brand new website all loaded up with items to sell. How are you going to get paid for those items when someone places an order? Of course you could invest in a PO Box and have people sent you checks and money orders. With the fraud going on with checks and money orders is that a safe thing to do? It is also a proven fact that most people will move away from your website and shop else where unless they have a secure way to pay you and it happens immediately. Another thing to consider is international payments. The internet is after all, world wide and so are your potential customers. If you plan on selling internationally you would need an ecommerce solution that handles international payments.

There is a company that is worth looking into. It is MS Merchant Account, they can handle all your ecommerce needs. A big plus is that they can also handle your brick and mortar store credit card processing too. As always shop around for the best company to handle your internet store payments. You want security as your number one priority so your customers will keep coming back to buy more items from you.

Blog and website promotion for the technically challenged

If you are selling anything via the internet then you must either have a website or a blog. Just having a website or blog will eventually get noticed by the search engines and thus get you visitors. Waiting for that to happen will be a slow process especially if you don't have TIME to wait. If you need to get your blog or website out to where people will notice it you need to have some SEO (search engine optimization). If you don't know how to do it - don't worry there are plenty of companies on the web that specialize in internet marketing and SEO.

One such company is Discount Click. They do all sorts of fantastic things to get your blog or website known to the general public. This company promises results in 2-4 weeks with page ranking and getting your website to the top of the search results. Of course their services are not free but if you are paying for internet marketing then you can expect results.

Saving money on insurance

No matter how you put it - we are all mortal. Our lives end at some point in time. Life insurance is a necessary evil that we all have to deal with. Our families are going to need that money to take care of our bodies if nothing else. But life insurance doesn't have to be something for after our deaths. My husband has a life insurance policy that he can borrow on. It has come very handy through the years when we needed the extra cash. When he pays it back it is the same as paying himself back, it is still his money. That same policy also had a disability clause that is now in affect. The clause stated if the insured ever became disabled then the life insurance company would pay the premiums for as long as the insured is disabled. My husband became permanently disabled 4 years ago, 15 years after he took out the life insurance policy. That policy was the best investment we ever had.

There are many different types of life insurance policies and here is a website to help you check prices, types of polices, and get a quote.

Advantage Term Life

Always remember to shop around for the best prices and coverage. I personally would stay away from accidental death insurance since most people do not die because of an accident.

The enemy of all bloggers has struck me

Writer's block is one of the worse things to hit a blogger. Going on for days without a single clue as to what to write about. That enemy will destroy a blog in a matter of days. Your regular readers will wonder what happened and new readers will think that the blog has been abandoned. I hate to rehash old tips and hints of saving or making money so I am out looking for more info to pass on to you.

As for my little business let me get you up to speed on it. I have sold 4 whole items online from the jewelry catalog - whoopee! and I mean that in a sarcastic way. I am finding out that items like jewelry sell better in person. I also have a professional embroidery machine that I have sold a few items on eBay. My total profits for this month are $150.00 which is not good for a business. On the other hand I am making about $4-6 a day writing articles for product and website reviews.

Here is an article I did for a website review that paid $4.00
Planning your New Year's Eve celebration

Which career is for you?

Almost everyone I know complains about their job, either they don't like what they are doing or it doesn't pay enough. Unhappy people usually make bad decisions when it comes their jobs or careers. With that in mind I went and found some interesting quiz sites to find out what job/career is best suited for you.

Design and merchandising quiz

iVillage career quiz

Princeton Review career quiz

Monster.com career quiz

Dream career quiz

You don't need to promote your blog to make it a success

Successful blogs are written not promoted. Why am I making that statement? Simple, the results are in about my little experiment with another blog. Just after I started this blog I started another blog for my daughter to maintain. My daughter is 15 years old so I figured if she could do it anyone can. Her subject for her blog is sea life. It is something she likes and is interested in it. Right now as I write this the blog only has 15 posts and the first post was on November 19, 2007, not even a month old yet. She has a few affiliate sponsors and she likes to put widgets on it like she does on myspace. Also on the blog is that widget that tells you how much the website is worth just like on this blog. I also have the invisible tracking software on the blog to let me know who is visiting, for how long, how many pages they are looking at and what they are looking at.

That blog has had no blog promotion of any kind. It is linked only to 2 of my other blogs. It has about 6-10 visitors a day and some leave comments. The "what is your website worth" widget on the blog speaks for itself - people are linking to it. They are also finding the blog thru web searches on Google.

Bottom line is that she has a blog that talks about what people are interested in, not just ramblings on about how to make money or here is how to sell stuff on ebay. It is the content of her blog that is making it a success not the promotion of it. It boils down to "write well and your readers will come".

OK so here is the blog so you can see it for yourself
Sea life around the world

I won blog of the day!!

For December 13, 2007
Here is the link where they picked my blog

Becoming a professional writer

When I was little I always wrote stories. I got good grades on my essays and stories. I dreamt of one day writing a best selling book. Now with the internet access I can now try to fulfill my dream. That book, a work of fiction, already has 2 chapters written. Until it is finished I am learning the ropes of being a professional writer. I already have 14 articles written at Associated Content and I have been paid for them too. It is nice to have some extra money for doing something I like doing - writing.

Here are some of the items I have done:
Is your wedding ring making you sick?
Saving money on your food bill
New Years Eve 2008 fireworks displays in San Francisco
Bad toys for Christmas
My Grandmother's odd cooking recipes

If you are interested in becoming a freelance writer for the internet then click on the AC banner above. It is free to join and you can either write article for them for money or write and submit your own short items for performance pay (you get $1.50 for every 1000 times your article is read) It is a very simple and quick way to learn about freelance writing.

Staying safe this shopping season

I know many of you have not even begun your Christmas shopping. In the wake of the past mall shootings I have found a video on how to stay safe while shopping at a mall or large store. You never know when a "nut case", terroist or ex-employee decides to go on the rampage.

Selling stuff online

So you now need some extra money to help pay for Christmas. Just join the crowd there are lots of us in the same boat. I am going to give you a quick run down on where to sell your "stuff" online.

• Ebay is the first place that comes to mind when anyone is trying to sell online. If you have a collectible item then I say go for it. That is the place that people shop for rare and old, one of a kind items. If you have a new item to sell, stay away from eBay because people that shop there will only buy a brand new item if it is dirt cheap. Watch out for their high selling fees both when you list your item and when the item sells. Ebay uses PayPal
• Amazon.com is a great place to sell your books, computer software and other types of items. The big plus about Amazon is that they don't charge you to list an item but they do charge a fee when it sells. The customers that shop Amazon also expect to pay more for their purchase so you don't get the bargain hunters like you do on eBay. Only certain types of items can be sold on Amazon with having one of their "webstores". If you have a webstore you can sell anything. Amazon transfers your payments straight to your bank account.
• Ecrater.com is a free ecommerce site that you can set up your own store. You have a wide choice of how you can have people pay you. The store can have as many items as you want. The down side is that you have to promote it like a regular website.
• Craigslist.com is one of the most used online ad systems in the USA. I hear of more and more people shopping on craigslist than getting stuff off of eBay. Craigslist is free to use but you do get some weird people that like to criticize ads.

I have personally used eBay, Amazon and Ecrater. Of the 3 I like Amazon for the higher prices they get me, Ecrater to sell my jewelry and eBay to sell some old items that were collecting dust. I have used Craigslist to advertise my Ecrater store.

What people are really looking for on the internet

I have been to a few internet marketing seminars in the past few years just to pick up some tips and hints on how to better conduct business online. The main fact I was constantly being told was the biggest commodity on the internet was information. People go online to look something up or learn something new. When I see people giving information away I wonder why they do it. For example there is a blog that has nothing but free myspace layouts on it. The code is put there so you can copy it and use it. It is one of the most popular blogs online today according to Techorati.com, the website that keeps track of those things. That same blog makes the blog owners money in Google ad revenue and lots of it. So they have found a way to give something away and still make money in the process.

Along those same lines I looked up which of my blog posts got the most readers. In number one place it was the Hallmark Humping Dog with a close second being Find out how much your website is worth. Both of those posts had nothing to do with making money, saving money or blogging in general. They were both a curiosity item type of posts. With that now in mind I have started an experimental blog that has nothing to do with money or selling anything and this blog will not be promoted. Right now I have been tracking it's progress on Statcounter and it gets about 5 visits a day with about 10 posts so far. People are also linking to it. I will let everyone know how my mystery blog and experiment does.

Reflections of what Christmas is suppose to be about

A nasty winter cold has hit me hard. Between sleeping and hacking my brains out I am managing to write a few articles on my laptop. Access to the internet is a bit harder since it is at the other end of the house. I am finding it hard to be creative when I am having trouble breathing, but writing something down does take my mind off of having this cold. This time has also given me time to reflect and daydream which I feel is something we all need to do every now and again. The rest of the family more or less leaves me alone so I also get much needed quite time to myself.

Last night I spent some time with the rest of the family and we watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" on TV, not the old cartoon but the newer movie version. It reminded me of how we have become a society based on gifts at Christmas time. More and more each year Christ has been removed from Christmas. Why doesn't big business get it over with and just call it the "End of the year store clearance sale and celebration".

If you want to do an unusual gift this year, give yourself. Here is a list of ideas:

• Babysitting for one evening
• Pet sitting for a weekend
• Yard work
• Help someone move
  

Santa will be feeling the economy pinch this year

I thought I was the only one that thought of more practical gifts this year. Apparently the slowing economy has kicked in a trend of cautious shoppers this year. Santa won't be that generous with expensive gifts.

Increasing your blog popularity

In order to become a successful blogger you need readers, readers that come everyday, loyal readers. Once you have just a few readers or even one loyal reader you are on your way to success. Why do I say that? Simple, you have found at least one person that likes your style of writing and likes what you have to say everyday. If there is one person there must be more out there somewhere.

How will you know if you have a loyal following? Well, you should have some sort of tracking code on your blog to let you know where your readers are coming from, how long they are staying, what they are looking at and where in the world they are. If you don't have such a code installed you can get it at StatCounter for free.

Once you have found your loyal readers, do a bit of investigation and find out their blog or website and visit it. If it allows you to make comments then by all means do so. Make them feel as important as they made you feel. I found a very informative blog post on one of the world's most popular blogs that tells you how to grow your blogging audience in "The Secret to Building a Popular Blog". It goes into great detail on how to get people to make comments on you blog and make everyone feel like they are an active part of the blog.

I am done with my pep talk for today - now go out in cyberland and become popular.

A surprising turn of events, earning money writing freelance

I had heard about Associated Content last year when I was sent a small package from them and an invite to join. I looked into it and then forgot about them. I don't know what prompted me to check them out again but I did just that 2 weeks ago. When I logged in for the first time I was offered all these "calls" to a write 400-500 word article about different subjects. I figured I could do that and wrote them. This is my second week with them and so far I have been paid $10.00 for 2 articles and I have another 3 that I have to write for $15.00 more. I can usually crank the articles out at a rate of 4 an hour so for the pay rate I think I am doing pretty good.



Here is one of the articles that I have done so you can get an idea of what type of subjects they offer writers. Personalized Christmas stockings

It looks like I have found another steady source of income. It is low to begin with but who knows where it will take me. At $25.00 a week it pays off my dental bill.

Sterling silver jewelry that I sell

My little adventure into selling at jewelry parties has a very mild beginning. I have sold about $300 worth of jewelry of which my net profit has been $150. Not bad for a part time venture. I tried listing a few items on eBay but they seemed to have gotten lost in the crowd. Also the fact that people who shop on eBay are looking for dirt cheap items and don't want to pay even wholesale on some things. Ebay is just like the old fashioned flea markets and my items are not flea market quality.

I have sold a few books on Amazon.com in the past and still have a few listed on there. They have a higher clientele that will pay more for items. The only problem with Amazon is that I can't list my jewelry unless I have a full blown web store with them. The store cost $59 a month and to me is rather high just for a spot on the internet.

Ecrater.com is another option but it would be just like any other website that I would have to promote. Ecrater.com has the best price - it's free.

The local holiday bazaars did not pan out for me for selling the jewelry. I also get very bored sitting and trying to sell in one spot for 7 hours or more. That type of selling is NOT for me.

I just need another outlet for my selling. By the way the photo of the necklace is from my celtic collection.

Big companies play Scrooge at Christmas

I have never been loyal to my corporate employers. If I found a better paying job or got sick and tired of being treated like sh** I would leave. I have only left 2 jobs in my entire working career, one for more money and the other because I was not treated very well because I was woman in a man's career. Because of that fact I have not been a "loyal" employee. Granted I have stayed with companies for well over 10 years but those same companies can and do treat their employees like a throw away commodity at Christmas time.

This Christmas is no different. I know a few people working at HP as temp workers and they have been let go in the past few weeks. Several major music recording companies have just announced layoffs: Sony, EMI, Warner and others. At least 2 major research labs have announced layoffs, they are the Lawrence Livermore Lab and the Los Alamos Lab, both in California. They are having cuts of up to 800 people each. There have been many more in the news in the past few days.

My biggest gripe is why do these companies wait to around the holidays to do this to people? They obviously knew about the pending cuts long before the end of the year, so do they just like playing the part of Scrooge?

Do you consider yourself happy or depressed?

Does money really buy happiness? I know for me it sure does take the worry out of paying the bills, but what have researchers found out about it? Interesting subject. More about it in the video below.

Earn extra money beta testing video games

I have done beta testing in the past for websites before they have been released to the public. Mostly it was checking to see if the shopping carts worked correctly or seeing if the message boards were formatted correctly. I am still an administrator for one message board. My pay for helping them out was usually limited to "membership" or discounts. Once and a while I get to put up a banner ad but that is it. I never thought to do it as a full time job. I know they are out there I just haven't bothered looking for them. I did find information on becoming a beta tester for video games. Action video games are not a pastime for me, I prefer card type games rather than action/adventure types of video games. This information on beta testing video games seems to be more related to the action type games. I guess I'll pass on that.

Save money on gasoline - car runs on water!

I am always looking for ways to save money. The 2 biggest on going expenses at our house are food and gasoline. Food I can shop around for lower prices but gasoline seems to be a battle we are all facing. I am not a mechanic but I do know that you can save MPG on certain types of vehicles. Years ago I knew people that converted their gas powered commuter cars to diesel. Nowadays we are hearing of hydrogen and electric cars. I always thought that those cars had to be bought built like that until I came across this, a car powered by water. Now I don't know if it would work or if it is an experiment but I do know that one day in the not to far future we might all be desperately looking for a solution like a water powered car.