I've heard of Copyscape before but never checked them out until recently. If you don't know, Copyscape is a program that takes a URL then searches Google to see if content at that URL exists somewhere else online.
The primary use of Copyscape is to find other websites that have stolen your content, specifically unique articles and original thoughts or ideas carefully crafted and placed online by you.
The Reason:
Google gives your site a lot of credit for having unique content, the more unique content you have, the more value Google will place on your site. If someone steals your content and places it on their site, the content is no longer unique and your ranking at Google will suffer (or worse yet, disappear into the "supplemental" index). This should be a very good reason to go after content thieves and protect your hard work.
All this got me thinking... eventually people are going to rip off content no matter what and there's nothing I can do to prevent it. My website is out there, the text is out there, and anyone viewing it can copy and paste whether I like it or not.
So... my idea is to let them do it. In fact, I'll even promote it. With Copyscape I can find the offenders at any time I like and while a nasty gram from a lawyer might relieve some anger, here's a different approach:
Once someone steals your content and places it on their own website, lookup the website owner at www.whois.sc and note their email address. You want to send them an email pointing out the violation of copyright laws, ask them to remove the content immediately, and then offer to have the content re-written for a fee if they wish to use it.
Re-Written for a Fee?!
Yup! What else are we going to do when this happens? Get mad and waste money on lawyers? Accept it and take the hit on our Google rankings? Give up and join the circus? Come to think of it, the circus might work...
About the only real solution I have here is to try and turn a negative into a positive by charging the content thieves money. I mean why not? If we came up with the content in the first place, we can most likely re-write it, and if we paid someone else, hopefully they'd be willing to re-write it too. And if you aren't worried about the duplicate content issue, charge the webmaster to use an "authorized copy" of the article. People pay for stuff when it's "authorized". =)
Come to think of it, maybe this is a way to get lots of free content for your site... Pay someone $10 to write an article, post it online and wait for someone to steal it, email the content thief and offer to re-write the article for $15 (or let them use a copy for $10), rinse and repeat.
Maybe it'd work, maybe not. I guess it doesn't hurt to try and any day you can turn something bad in your favor is a good day.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Making Money in the First Week with a Free Blog
I find it slightly ironic that a few hours ago I was burnt out from a marathon work session with no earnings and shortly after that post, this blog made its first revenue to date - a whopping 48 cents in revenue! Woot! Think I'll buy myself half a cheeseburger.
Joking aside, the real story, I think, is how quickly this blog went from non-existent to a bonafide revenue stream - my first post on here was barely over four days ago! This should confirm what I've been saying already - Start getting your revenue streams online and running and do it NOW. It doesn't matter if they are large or small, simple or complex. It only matters that the are functional and that they exist in the first place.
Now back to one of my little revenue streams, this blog. This site was FREE,It didn't cost me a dime or any out of pocket expenses. Just a little dedication, some attempted creativity, and crazy fingers that don't know when to stop typing.
Stay tuned for some tips that I feel helped make this blog work well enough to start earning money in the first week.
Note: I wrote this post three days before finally getting it posted. Most was written towards the end of my marathon work session but I was so worn out that I didn't get it finished and posted. Yeah, I got a lot accomplished over the marathon work session, but I crashed at the end and the blog suffered without updates until three days later. I guess the lesson here is not to rush things when it comes to making money online. Just keep at it, keep trying different ideas, and eventually you'll find what works for you and can build on that.
Joking aside, the real story, I think, is how quickly this blog went from non-existent to a bonafide revenue stream - my first post on here was barely over four days ago! This should confirm what I've been saying already - Start getting your revenue streams online and running and do it NOW. It doesn't matter if they are large or small, simple or complex. It only matters that the are functional and that they exist in the first place.
Now back to one of my little revenue streams, this blog. This site was FREE,It didn't cost me a dime or any out of pocket expenses. Just a little dedication, some attempted creativity, and crazy fingers that don't know when to stop typing.
Stay tuned for some tips that I feel helped make this blog work well enough to start earning money in the first week.
Note: I wrote this post three days before finally getting it posted. Most was written towards the end of my marathon work session but I was so worn out that I didn't get it finished and posted. Yeah, I got a lot accomplished over the marathon work session, but I crashed at the end and the blog suffered without updates until three days later. I guess the lesson here is not to rush things when it comes to making money online. Just keep at it, keep trying different ideas, and eventually you'll find what works for you and can build on that.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Build Followers and Get the Most Out of Twitter by Leveraging Online Scripts
Ok, so I haven't gone to bed yet. I guess there's more money to be made, or work to be done, or something. Before bed, I want to make a quick (or not so quick) post about a website that you can use to schedule tweets on Twitter, automatically send direct messages to your new followers, and automatically follow anyone who follows you.
The website is TweetLater.com, and it has some very handy (and FREE) features that can be leveraged to manage, build, and interact with your followers on Twitter.
Why does all this matter? Because Twitter is a great way to market and brand yourself and having a large following there can prove to be profitable in more ways than one.
In future posts we will dig deeper into some of the ways Twitter is profitable, but for now I'd like to highlight a few nice features at TweetLater.
TweetLater's main draw for me is the ability to automatically send a direct message to all of my new followers. I simply entered my Twitter details at TweetLater, then created an intro phrase and now all my followers get a message "directly" from me once they've clicked to follow my tweets. It's a simple yet effective (FREE) method of interacting with like-minded peers with very little effort on your part. For those of you who asked how this was done, now you know.
And now for some juicy tidbits!
I noticed earlier today that TweetLater has extended their direct message system so you can now rotate the direct messages that are automatically sent to new followers. This means that we can now easily test different intro messages, as well as put an affiliate link or two into the rotation without spamming every new follower we get. Hopefully you're starting to get some ideas on how you can use this feature.
Another feature offered is the ability to automatically follow every new person who follows you. If you say "so what?", think about it from another angle... other people are using this feature to automatically follow their followers on Twitter. Lots of other people are using this. So... if you want a bunch of followers on Twitter, all you have to do is start following a bunch of people. Those using auto-follow will automatically follow you back! As a bonus you will get many more followers as well who aren't using auto-follow. You may not use the auto-follow feature yourself, but that doesn't mean you can't benefit from it!
So there we have it... a few simple ways to leverage online tools that save time while building your Twitter identity.
One final tip: No online brand building, promotion, or money making method will ever be 100% guaranteed or proven. Things can and will go wrong so all we can do is take methods that make money for others and tweak, tweak, tweak until we find what works for us.
(All this coming from a sleep-deprived, lazy online money maker who slipped into zombie mode three tacos ago. Imagine what a normal person could accomplish.)
The website is TweetLater.com, and it has some very handy (and FREE) features that can be leveraged to manage, build, and interact with your followers on Twitter.
Why does all this matter? Because Twitter is a great way to market and brand yourself and having a large following there can prove to be profitable in more ways than one.
In future posts we will dig deeper into some of the ways Twitter is profitable, but for now I'd like to highlight a few nice features at TweetLater.
TweetLater's main draw for me is the ability to automatically send a direct message to all of my new followers. I simply entered my Twitter details at TweetLater, then created an intro phrase and now all my followers get a message "directly" from me once they've clicked to follow my tweets. It's a simple yet effective (FREE) method of interacting with like-minded peers with very little effort on your part. For those of you who asked how this was done, now you know.
And now for some juicy tidbits!
I noticed earlier today that TweetLater has extended their direct message system so you can now rotate the direct messages that are automatically sent to new followers. This means that we can now easily test different intro messages, as well as put an affiliate link or two into the rotation without spamming every new follower we get. Hopefully you're starting to get some ideas on how you can use this feature.
Another feature offered is the ability to automatically follow every new person who follows you. If you say "so what?", think about it from another angle... other people are using this feature to automatically follow their followers on Twitter. Lots of other people are using this. So... if you want a bunch of followers on Twitter, all you have to do is start following a bunch of people. Those using auto-follow will automatically follow you back! As a bonus you will get many more followers as well who aren't using auto-follow. You may not use the auto-follow feature yourself, but that doesn't mean you can't benefit from it!
So there we have it... a few simple ways to leverage online tools that save time while building your Twitter identity.
One final tip: No online brand building, promotion, or money making method will ever be 100% guaranteed or proven. Things can and will go wrong so all we can do is take methods that make money for others and tweak, tweak, tweak until we find what works for us.
(All this coming from a sleep-deprived, lazy online money maker who slipped into zombie mode three tacos ago. Imagine what a normal person could accomplish.)
No Earnings, Worn Out and Ready to Give Up on Everything? It Gets Better if You Stick with It
Today is one of those days, and it's been a long one. There is too much going on in my little online money making world and that doesn't sit well with the lazy man's approach.
The new website project to test a niche affiliate program is coming along, however slowly. Unfortunately, a large chunk of my time is still taken up with mundane projects just to pay the bills and make ends meet so the website affiliate project hasn't received the attention it deserves...yet. But it will and I will post an update to the MoreNiche Money Making Journal in the next day or two.
Right now I have been up for over 41 hours, spending most of the time working on one online project or another. I wrote some blog posts and a couple articles, researched new affiliate programs and methods, found another domain to purchase, setup revenue sharing on two more forums (post about free money through revenue sharing), set up some new internet marketing methods I'm playing with (more on those soon), and I also re-wrote around 5,000 words of content for a couple webmaster friends. And that's only the stuff I remember doing.
So as my eyelids get heavier, and the keystrokes take longer, I ask myself what the heck am I doing?! every bone in my body aches, my muscles feel like jell-o, little twinkly stars appear in my vision, and my revenue stats parade a big fat ZERO that laughs in my face.
Today I'm down and out. But it's not over as nothing I've created has gone away. You can be down and out one day, and still get back on track. The trick is making sure you can pick up where you left off once you're ready to get back to making money. It's a rotten path going down the road of internet wealth only to get sidetracked and later have to start from scratch.
In the online world we can build the pieces slowly and take our time with them. If things don't immediately go our way, or if complications arise that take our focus away from the online world, it's ok. Nobody's perfect and we can't all take the straight path to wealth. But if we start putting the right pieces in place, keep building on those pieces, adding to them and tweaking them to maximize earnings, we'll progress along that path to wealth until one day we wake up and realize the journey has been traveled and now a new one lies ahead.
It's ok to be down and out. And it's pretty much expected that everybody will hit brick walls at some point when making money online. But keep those money making pieces in place and keep putting more of them out there. Keep heading down the path to online wealth. Stay determined, and good things will happen.
Note: After a long, long day, this post may be full of errors and/or incoherent rambling. I appoelzzz.....
The new website project to test a niche affiliate program is coming along, however slowly. Unfortunately, a large chunk of my time is still taken up with mundane projects just to pay the bills and make ends meet so the website affiliate project hasn't received the attention it deserves...yet. But it will and I will post an update to the MoreNiche Money Making Journal in the next day or two.
Right now I have been up for over 41 hours, spending most of the time working on one online project or another. I wrote some blog posts and a couple articles, researched new affiliate programs and methods, found another domain to purchase, setup revenue sharing on two more forums (post about free money through revenue sharing), set up some new internet marketing methods I'm playing with (more on those soon), and I also re-wrote around 5,000 words of content for a couple webmaster friends. And that's only the stuff I remember doing.
So as my eyelids get heavier, and the keystrokes take longer, I ask myself what the heck am I doing?! every bone in my body aches, my muscles feel like jell-o, little twinkly stars appear in my vision, and my revenue stats parade a big fat ZERO that laughs in my face.
Today I'm down and out. But it's not over as nothing I've created has gone away. You can be down and out one day, and still get back on track. The trick is making sure you can pick up where you left off once you're ready to get back to making money. It's a rotten path going down the road of internet wealth only to get sidetracked and later have to start from scratch.
In the online world we can build the pieces slowly and take our time with them. If things don't immediately go our way, or if complications arise that take our focus away from the online world, it's ok. Nobody's perfect and we can't all take the straight path to wealth. But if we start putting the right pieces in place, keep building on those pieces, adding to them and tweaking them to maximize earnings, we'll progress along that path to wealth until one day we wake up and realize the journey has been traveled and now a new one lies ahead.
It's ok to be down and out. And it's pretty much expected that everybody will hit brick walls at some point when making money online. But keep those money making pieces in place and keep putting more of them out there. Keep heading down the path to online wealth. Stay determined, and good things will happen.
Note: After a long, long day, this post may be full of errors and/or incoherent rambling. I appoelzzz.....
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Learn to Earn: The 11 Most Effective CashCrate Referral Methods that Will Get You Earning Money Now
Here are the most effective methods to quickly start referring people to CashCrate and make money doing it. Near the bottom I also included some extra methods that still work, but aren't as easy, cheap, or effective as the top ideas. If nothing else, I hope this list sparks some ideas for ways you can boost your referrals and make more money online.
While these referral methods are specific to CashCrate, they will work for most referral programs but be sure the methods are allowed by the program first (ex/ many programs don't allow you to offer incentives for people to sign up). So, without further word spewing from me, here are the most effective CashCrate referral methods in no particular order:
And a final tip: Make sure to cross-link your blog, website, articles, posts, and classifieds.
Here are the less effective methods that are still worth looking into and will hopefully generate some ideas of your own:
Enjoy!
While these referral methods are specific to CashCrate, they will work for most referral programs but be sure the methods are allowed by the program first (ex/ many programs don't allow you to offer incentives for people to sign up). So, without further word spewing from me, here are the most effective CashCrate referral methods in no particular order:
- Post on Money Making and GPT forums - include a signature link if allowed. (GPT is short for "Get Paid To")
- Tell your friends and family members
- Start a free blog at blogger.com or wordpress.com with posts about making money
- Make a website and promote your link on it
- Tell people through IM/PM
- Offer cash or other incentives for sign-ups
- Use Google Adwords or other pay per click advertising (PPC)
- Build a huge MySpace friends list or Twitter following and dedicate the profile to your blog or website
- Attach your referral link in the signature of your emails
- Advertise on Craigslist
- Write an article then submit it to free sites like ezinearticles.com. Include your ref link or website/blog link in the resource box.
And a final tip: Make sure to cross-link your blog, website, articles, posts, and classifieds.
Here are the less effective methods that are still worth looking into and will hopefully generate some ideas of your own:
- Write your link with bright markers on dollar bills then spend them at stores and as tips at restaurants.
- Put flyers on cars in busy parking lots.
- Put your referral link in your signature on all the forums you frequent with a catchy description.
- Visit groups and chat rooms that are focused on "Easy Money Making" and "Making Money Online".
- Post a flyer at work.
- Advertise on your car with window paint, magnetic signs, bumper stickers, etc.
- Post your referral link at the end of your YouTube videos.
- Send out flyers in a mailing list (ex.: http://www.usdatafax.com/)
- Link-Exchange
- Paid advertising on other people's websites
- Buy banner space. Impression in high PR forums/groups.
- Buy "paid to sign up" at other GPT sites
- Buy an expired domain with traffic and "redirect" to your referral link ex: www.realstat.info
- Buy text links on blogs/forums/groups
- Free traffic exchanges
- Paid traffic exchanges
- Add your site/blog to digg, stumble upon, Bumpzee, del.icio.us, etc
- Have a friend or network digg your site/blog to digg, stumble, etc
- Register at www.getref.com where you can earn referrals.
- Road-side signs & banners
- Use an online game, e-book, or other incentive - hand it out free after they sign up
- Optimize your website for better search engine ranking.
- Add regular content to your site or blog. Keep it updated with new info.
- Before shipping eBay items, put an ad with your ref. link in the box.
- Send email to all your contacts, and tell them to join with your referral link.
- Tell people at school/work/the store, where ever.
- Sign up for a virtual business card. www.entrecard.com and list your blog under the money making forum. Once you sign up, visit other money making blogs and drop your card on their site.
- Place business cards with your referral link in shopping carts.
- Print free business cards at Vistaprint.com.
- Get pencils, paper, pens, magnets, etc printed with your link on them and "leave" them lying around. (Free at VistaPrint.com).
- Start up a free online games website full of free flash and/or java games and embed your banner into the top of each game.
- Get a rubber stamp and stamp your ref. link or website on envelopes that you use to mail bills.
- Offer to help find their first referrals after signing up under you.
Enjoy!
Don't Forget to Be Lazy if You Want to Make Money Online
This blog is only a few days old and already a theme involving laziness is emerging. This is great! Laziness is the mother of some of the greatest innovations known to man. Life gets better and easier because ingenious people think up ways for us to sit on our butts a little bit more.
And I for one think that's a good thing. To an extent anyway.
When it comes to work, I'm lazy. Sure, I enjoy learning and trying new things, but the monotonous grind of eeking out an existence is not for me. Don't get me wrong, I've got a good work ethic and I take pride in doing a quality job. But I'm not going to dig a hole just to fill it back in and if there's an easier way to do something (especially when it comes to making money online), I'm all over it.
You may have noticed another theme developing in the recent posts. That theme is the idea of doing a project once but getting paid for your labor many times over the long run. This is a prime example of being lazy and it is one of the most effective methods there is to becoming filthy stinkin' rich. I should know, I'm already filthy and stinkin'.
A popular example of this lazy wealth generation method is writing a book then collecting royalties. An example more pertinent to this site would be an affiliate program that offers recurring revenue. You spend the effort once to find a customer, then earn commissions over the life of that customer. Some websites are another example. They can be mostly (or fully) automated and continue to bring money in the door month after month. Do the work once, get paid again and again. Who says it doesn't pay to be lazy?
So start thinking about making money online a little bit differently and see what ideas pop up. You can work hard and be lazy at the same time while enjoying life more and keeping burnout further at bay.
And I for one think that's a good thing. To an extent anyway.
When it comes to work, I'm lazy. Sure, I enjoy learning and trying new things, but the monotonous grind of eeking out an existence is not for me. Don't get me wrong, I've got a good work ethic and I take pride in doing a quality job. But I'm not going to dig a hole just to fill it back in and if there's an easier way to do something (especially when it comes to making money online), I'm all over it.
You may have noticed another theme developing in the recent posts. That theme is the idea of doing a project once but getting paid for your labor many times over the long run. This is a prime example of being lazy and it is one of the most effective methods there is to becoming filthy stinkin' rich. I should know, I'm already filthy and stinkin'.
A popular example of this lazy wealth generation method is writing a book then collecting royalties. An example more pertinent to this site would be an affiliate program that offers recurring revenue. You spend the effort once to find a customer, then earn commissions over the life of that customer. Some websites are another example. They can be mostly (or fully) automated and continue to bring money in the door month after month. Do the work once, get paid again and again. Who says it doesn't pay to be lazy?
So start thinking about making money online a little bit differently and see what ideas pop up. You can work hard and be lazy at the same time while enjoying life more and keeping burnout further at bay.
Maximize Your Online Money Making Potential - Don't Forget About Forum Signatures
I recently mentioned how you can make passive AdSense income by taking advantage of revenue sharing websites. One thing mentioned in that post is that online forums are a big part of the revenue sharing world.
That thought prompted this post - Don't forget about forum signatures as a potential money making method. Almost all forums allow at least one link in your signature and many allow several. Don't let this use of Other People's Sites (OPS) go to waste! It's FREE MONEY.
First, make sure to familiarize yourself with the forum rules before getting spam happy with your signature. Some forum moderators are a bit communist in nature and will ban anyone, anywhere, for anything. These sites help make us money, the least we can do is play by their rules when we're on their websites.
Once familiar with the forum rules, pick a few links you think will work well on the site and give it a test run. Remember: In the online money making world, sometimes it takes some tweaking to find out what works (no, not that type of tweaking). If a link isn't converting, try linking somewhere else.
Here are some tips for choosing what type of links to use in your forum signatures:
We might not be able to get rich overnight, but we can take steps in the right direction every day. It'll add up and one day we'll wake up and be there.
So get to it already!
That thought prompted this post - Don't forget about forum signatures as a potential money making method. Almost all forums allow at least one link in your signature and many allow several. Don't let this use of Other People's Sites (OPS) go to waste! It's FREE MONEY.
First, make sure to familiarize yourself with the forum rules before getting spam happy with your signature. Some forum moderators are a bit communist in nature and will ban anyone, anywhere, for anything. These sites help make us money, the least we can do is play by their rules when we're on their websites.
Once familiar with the forum rules, pick a few links you think will work well on the site and give it a test run. Remember: In the online money making world, sometimes it takes some tweaking to find out what works (no, not that type of tweaking). If a link isn't converting, try linking somewhere else.
Here are some tips for choosing what type of links to use in your forum signatures:
- Make sure affiliate links are allowed before using them. Using affiliate links where they aren't welcome is a shortcut to getting kicked off the island.
- If affiliate links are not allowed, don't despair. If you have a personal website or small business, promote that. Use the signature space to build backlinks to your own sites. Don't have a site yet? Heck, you could even you signature space to sell the junk from around your house (bye bye ebay fees!)
- If affiliate links are allowed, only promote quality products and services and make sure they are targeted to people who frequent the forum. Links to Omaha Steaks probably don't work very well on a vegetarian forum (for some odd reason) so if your links aren't at least somewhat targeted, you're probably better off spending time doing something else.
- Active niche forums will work the best. Let's face it, some forums just don't cut it. You want an active forum with plenty of member on a focused topic. Don't waste your time on the lame-duck forums unless the goal is to build backlinks.
- If you are using the forum signature to build backlinks to your own websites, start with forums that have a high Google Page Rank. Google's Page Rank still carries a lot of weight and having links from several PR sites will do nothing but help your search engine ranking position (SERP). Note: If you are in the process of building backlinks, check out my previous post about an extensive list of blogs that have a high Page Rank (so you can post your link in the comments).
- If you are using the forum signature for affiliate links, the forum's active user base is much more important than the Page Rank.
We might not be able to get rich overnight, but we can take steps in the right direction every day. It'll add up and one day we'll wake up and be there.
So get to it already!
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