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30 Proven Ways to Monetize Your Blog Part I

Luis Sandoval — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:40:52 +0000

2009 is rapidly approaching! A new year is ahead and a great many of us bloggers are looking for unique revenue streams to add a little extra income to their current finances, or create a lifestyle where blogging can support all of your needs.

This series of posts is going to feed you some amazing information for you to digest over the next week or so. My hope is that thru this information, you can explore these avenues further, and perhaps find ways to achieve your goals.

1. PPC Advertising Methods

Google AdSense is the most popular example of this monetizing methods. The concept is for a user to sign up on a site and then include snippets of data on your site to monitor. Your results and the amount of money you make through this method is solely depended on two things, the first is the traffic that goes through your site, and secondly the niche that you’ve established yourself in.

2. CPM Advertising Networks

CPM is based on the number of page views your site receives. CPM (Cost Per Mille) is based on every 1,000 impressions your site receives. Rates will vary depending on the network you choose to align yourself with. The more impressions you receive, the more money you make; anything from as low as $.10 to as high as $10 is what you will find across the networks.

3. Banner Advertising

This method can be one of the most lucrative methods, again dependent upon the size of your audience, and the number of advertisers that you can attract. Using the site you’ve created, you decide what space you’re willing to offer up, and then attract quality advertisers to that spot. You have a direct line to the advertises which leaves you not having to depend on a middle man.

4. Text Link Advertising

Text Linking is a pretty straight forward method. Having links within your site that are not intrusive, but are available to market different items to your readers. The word will look like a hyperlink which will take you to a site of the advertisers choice, but it’s not so blatant that it forces users to click, so the opt in/out is beneficial. There are down sides to Text Link Advertising so make sure you read the links below as you research these methods.

5. Affiliate Marketing

Very popular amongst the vast majority of online marketers, where a merchant will allow others to sell the product either directly or indirectly for a commission. Whatever tools you use to increase sales, you are bound to make money and increase your exposure.

6. Money Making Widgets

These are basically what has been mentioned above in the last four listings, except the concept is contained within a widget making it easier for site owners to plug it into their site and hit the ground running.

7. Sponsored Reviews

The idea for this method is to charge for a review of a product or service that is offered. This can get sticky for several reasons. For starters your site must lend itself to this type of monetization method, a review will look odd if the site does not fit the post, secondly the review may not be favorable if the product or service is not good. You don’t want to give off the impression that your “positive” review can be paid for, so becareful with this one.

8. Advertising via RSS

RSS Feeds are the new hot trend. Everyone is receiving information through their feeds, and aggregators are becoming increasingly popular as users tap into their collective gatherings for all the information they seek. Attaching advertising to the RSS is a new practice with very few options, but it’s always worth a try!

9. Content Sponsors

If you have specific areas of your site that are highly specialized, or perhaps you create original online content for your site like a podcast or vlog, you can always seek sponsors for these. Depending on your topic, there are plenty of sponsors out there looking for the right exposure.

10. Premium Content

Many sites offer premium content on their sites; basically content that users will pay for in order to get more in depth knowledge or one-on-one expertise. Premium content is created and controlled by you, and if you are able to establish yourself as an expert and monetize your efforts, the sky is the limit for your endeavors.

Take a look at what Internet Business Mastery has done with their site.

These are just a few of the examples, as we go throughout the week we’ll discuss the rest of the methods in Part II and Part III. Digest these ideas and plan your attack for 2009!

Luis Sandoval is a media professional and consultant who shares his insights on social media and technology on his blog The Daily Slackr.

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Time To Run On Fumes

Michelle La — Thu, 01 May 2008 04:02:09 +0000

Automobiles have been around for a long time now with new designs and concepts coming out every year. I remember how when I was in school, I would see pictures in books of cars that have to be winded up to start. Even back then cars would run on some sort of petroleum and I’m pretty sure before petroleum, cars were running on other types of matter. Reality now shows that a huge percentage of the population in the whole world have some type of automobile transportation that is owned. I’m not talking about public transportation like buses, but rather the cars and motorcycles that you see on the streets and freeways. The reason why a huge population owns a type of transportation is because going to work isn’t just a stroll to the park anymore, but more of a 10-20 mile or more walk. I know there are some crazy people out there that loves to walk far to work to save on some money and the Earth, but most are just commuting through all the traffic. No matter how much gas costs and no matter how much it is hurting the Earth, driving an automobile is just a need in most families these days.

Gas prices are just soaring through the roof these days. I don’t know about you, but I hate George W Bush for having all this happen. Now it is more difficult for the US to obtain gas from the Middle East. Some of you may not agree with me, but some of you may. Now I drive an 1996 Isuzu Rodeo SUV an my wife drives a 2003 Nissan Sentra. My SUV is just a gas using truck that runs about 280-300 miles on a $60+ gas fill-up. My wife’s car is a bit better because it gets 200 miles for every $30-35 fill-up. Even with the prices so high and my wife and I dead broke, we still drive a car to go out and eat or go shopping.

Drive A Hybrid

A hybrid may be the best thing that has happened to the world since pure electric cars. If you don’t know what a hybrid car is, it is basically a automobile that is able to run on both gas and electric depending on your speed. An average hybrid vehicle could get you about 30 miles per fill-up. The average used to be about 40-50 miles per fill-up, but because of the new SUV and truck hybrids, the average is lowered. More hybrids are getting into the market as we speak, but are they really reliable?

Saving gas means you’re saving money, but from what I’ve heard, hybrid vehicles require a battery change every 3-4 years with a high cost of about $3,000. This may be a stereotypical remark because everyone was stating this problem when the Toyota Prius began to sell in the market, but I did some research. The research was done back in 2005 when hybrids really started to knock us on the head by how much money they would save, but I still consider the information to be true tested facts. According to Toyota and other hybrid makers like, Ford and Chevy, the battery of a hybrid vehicle is suppose to last the life of the vehicle itself. Most dealers give you a warranty of about 8-10 years or 100,000 miles, but Toyota has tested one of the Prius hybrids with 150,000 on the same battery. I don’t know of anyone that drives a hybrid vehicle and can confirm this, but it really depends on how you drive. A typical vehicle still requires maintenance every few thousand miles, but if you drive your car hard and fast, you can see yourself in a car shop about once every 1,000 miles.

Maybe now that you can see that the supposedly “dead on 3-4 year battery life” is untrue, you can fork out about $35,000 for one of these puppies to drive. I mean hey, TreeHugger says if you drive a hybrid for a few years, you’ll end up paying for the car itself

Gas Facts

All the scientists around the world are trying to form some sort of way to save on gas, so they came up with an idea that has been proven to be an inevitable facts. To make things easier, I’ll list them and you could tell me what you think.

Driving fast burns more gas, but only in some cases.
Keeping your speed at 55 would save you more gas than the speed limit, 65.
Driving over 60 mph would mean you would be spending 54cent more on the price per gallon you’re paying.
Driving slower would only make you about 5 minutes late to your destination (on average).
Speed limit used to be 55 mph.

Early Planning

Apart from saving gas and money by driving a bit slower, you could also plan your commutes. Commuting to work is inevitable, but while coming back from work, you could drop by markets, restaurants, shops, or even the mall before you arrive home. This way you won’t be driving out of your way to those destinations because you’re just coming home from work.

You shouldn’t stay at home and have no fun just because gas prices are soaring. As long as you’re planning the routes out, you should be able to save time, gas, and money.

Compact or SUV/Truck

If you look to your left or your right when you’re driving or walking on the sidewalk, you would notice that a higher percentage of cars now are either a SUV or a Truck (which is considered the same in some cases). Now these big cars don’t use very little gas because they run purely on gas. The Hummer 2 or BMW X5 that a lot of people would want to drive just burns on gas with about 10 and 15 miles respectively and those numbers are only highway mpg. The number that is posted on the window of each vehicle at the dealer shops are usually higher than the average amount of mpg you would receive .

2008 H2 Hummer -

6.2 Liter V8 Engine (used to be 6.0 Liter)
All Wheel Drive
32 Gallon Fuel Tank
Crusing range of about 310 miles
Average of 9.6MPG

2008 BMW X5 -

3.0 Liter V6 Engine
All Wheel Drive
22.5 Gallon Fuel Tank
Crusing range of about 405 miles
Average of 18MPG

These are just the stock numbers of both SUVs. Who would know how much heavier it is when you add those grills and 30″ DUBS?! Although the X5 is a very very bulky vehicle, it still gives about a decent amount gas mileage, while staying at a luxury state. I could’ve sworn the X5 burned more gas, but I’m totally wrong. I also wonder if Shoemoney or Zac Johnson care much about paying for their Hummers . The price tags of the above 2 SUVs are about $50,000, but lets take a look at 2 more reasonable compact automobiles.

Certain newer cars are being “made cheap”, which means that the price tag on some of these cars could range anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 OTD (out the door). Depending on how you pay and if you pay in full or not, the prices could become higher or even lower than $10,000. Although SUVs are more powerful in torque, compact cars are much ligher

2008 Toyota Yaris (Manual Transmission) -

1.5 Liter V4
2 Wheel Drive
29 MPG city / 36MPG Highway

2008 Toyota Corolla -

1.8 Liter V4
2 Wheel Drive
28 MPG city / 37MPG Highway

The above 2 cars are cheaper in market price, but they run a lot of miles before you run out of gas. Not to mention a fill-up for a full tank should only cost you about $35 and $40 tops. It also seems like these two vehicles have been very popular lately. I see a lot more Corollas (since it’s an Asian car here in LA), but the Yaris seems to be a lot more popular lately. The gas mileage on the two cars are very close, but the price range is about $5-7,000 apart depending on which model you want.

So now is your choice to choose whether you want to drive an SUV/Truck or a Compact car. Here in Los Angeles, driving a bigger car would be more safe because of all the accidents on the 10 Freeway and lately all the late night gang shootings that are killing innocent drivers. With a SUV/Truck, you would a least be higher off the ground and your vehicle would be a lot tougher. That is probably one of the reasons why I drive a big car and would probably buy an SUV in the future. I would take safety over gas prices, but if gas prices continue to rise to the predicted $10 per gallon, I may just walk and get shot lol.

A Reason To Change

Now that the prices per barrel of oil has raised to about $100 per barrel, scientists are coming up with a lot of new ways to save gas, use less gas, and save the Earth from global warming. I don’t have facts to back this up, but I hate it how scientists don’t come up with new ideas to save a situation until the situation occurs. Electrical cars were available for a long time, but it wasn’t until the economy saw an increase in oil that Hybrids were put into place. Because oil is dropping in supply, scientists are going out of their ways to think of new matter to substitute for gas oil. For some time, there were hypes about using vegetable oil, but it somewhat disappeared off the news and the Internet. Lastly, the gas being used, the more pollution to the Earth. I don’t know about you, but I hate breathing in second hand smoke and breathing in the pollution from the mufflers are just as bad. I know I contribute to the problem, but some cars are just wayyyy overdo for a smog check.

Since saving money is a huge factor, you should check out MoneyNing because he provides a lot of great tips on saving you money.

Global Warming: A Scientist’s (rare) Perspective

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:08:09 +0000

This guest post has been submitted by Shan of Globally Rational. Please pay his blog a visit if you wish to learn more about the world and polotical events.

The issue of global warming has plagued the minds of the educated world since it first became known. However, because of the doubt that many people have about its very existence and the uncertainty that the popular media has promoted by capitalizing on this doubt, the problem has not been properly addressed. Although all scientific evidence points towards the fact that global warming is the lead cause of a potentially destructive climate shift the likes of which has never been seen before, much of the media tends to display opposing perspectives in hopes of getting the attention of – and, in the process, selling their products and services to – the populace.

Increasing efforts to spread awareness of the phenomenon have not been as successful as some had hoped, primarily because much of the educated (non-scientist) population believes that the ongoing climate changes are part of a natural cycle and that not enough scientific evidence exists to indicate otherwise. People who have seen convincing evidence – especially scientists like myself – have not yet taken responsibility for educating the remainder of the population about the seriousness of the matte

The most important thing to realize is that the climate changes that we have experienced in the last few years are not a part of a natural cycle, contrary to what the energy companies would like you to believe. For the entire history of the world, global temperature averages have directly followed atmospheric carbon dioxide levels; since the industrial age (a relatively short period of time if you consider how long the world has existed), carbon dioxide levels have skyrocketed and global temperatures have followed. Although the temperatures that we are currently experiencing are not unprecedented, they are on pace to reach heights that this planet has never seen before if they follow the trend that scientists are predicting. Meanwhile, a drastic increase in the number of temperature extremes (both high temperatures and low temperatures… haven’t you noticed that winters are getting colder and summers are getting hotter?) and natural disasters (for instance, hurricanes are more frequent now than they were 20 years ago) indicates that the climate around the world is not fluctuating normally. Instead, we are seeing something that will lead to a major change in global currents and, eventually, another ice age. Such trends are easy to notice for scientists, whose profession requires daily experimentation and data analysis, but remain out of reach for much of the population. This makes it necessary for scientists to do all that is possible to spread such vital information. At the moment, all we do is publish our research in journals that only other scientists read, but we fail to spread the information to the general public.

Scientific evidence supporting global warming is lacking only in the popular media: about half of magazine/newspaper articles suggest that either it’s not happening or that it’s not caused by humans. Research journals, meanwhile, contain a wide variety of articles involving its causes and effects, nearly none of which dispute its existence. In fact, if a professor in my department were to say that he doesn’t believe in global warming, he’d become the laughingstock of the faculty. The few scientists that do discredit the notion of an unusual global temperature change are usually the ones that have a financial interest vested in energy companies.

Unfortunately, these scientists are the ones who are much more likely to be featured in an interesting news story, since it’s not easy to sell magazines and newspapers if you just write about a bunch of people who agree with each other. Most researchers rarely extend their influence beyond the circle of people in their own field, so their expert opinion gets lost in the plethora of articles that is constantly published in scholarly journals rather than in the popular media. To make the educated voice heard, environmental scientists must aim not to publish just in Science and Nature, but also in Time and Newsweek…. and the problem is that scientists don’t usually like to write non-scientific work and non-scientists don’t like to read scientific work.

An average educated person will often fail to acknowledge a major problem if significant action is required to solve it. Ethnic cleansing, genocide, and slavery have gone virtually unnoticed in the past because any action would be inconvenient (even recently, in places like Rwanda); often, we don’t even notice the problem until considerable damage has already been done. Similarly, global climate shifts pose a major concern that could potentially cause incalculable amounts of casualties – as can be seen by the disproportionately large number of hurricanes, droughts, and other natural disasters in recent years – and it is vital that the people are informed about the matter before the damage becomes uncontrollable. Because the public is mostly concerned that the scientific evidence for global warming is inadequate or faulty, it becomes the responsibility of the scientist to show that this is, in fact, not true. This is my attempt, as a scientist, to reach out to a common audience rather than just to colleagues. I hope that other scientists follow suit and establish the fact that the phenomenon is, in fact, very real and very dangerous.

All these factors aside, we need to keep in mind that whether humans are causing it or not, we have a major problem coming that we need to address. Even if global warming isn’t our fault, the change in climate is definitely real (this is a known fact that even oil companies don’t deny) and we need to adapt to it. We keep coming up with ideas like biodiesel and ethanol (which are actually no better for the environment than petroleum), but we ignore the fact that we still haven’t found a way to reverse the damage already done. The climate change will affect all of the worldwide currents and will propel us into another ice age unless we reverse it. If we can’t reverse it, then why aren’t we trying to find ways to live through the ice age? Even if it doesn’t happen during our lifetime, are we prepared to pass on such a massive problem to our kids and our grandkids?

It’s time for scientists to take action and tell the general public what we’ve known for years. This article is the first step… hopefully, we’ll see more in the future.

This guest post has been submitted by Shan of Globally Rational. Please pay his blog a visit if you wish to learn more about the world and polotical events.

Lights Out For Earth Hour

Michelle La — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:30:22 +0000

We all live in different places in the world on the planet we call, Earth. Earth has been around for many many years, but it wasn’t until recently that scientists are realizing that things need to be done to stabilize our planet. If you haven’t noticed, weather is changing and in some places like where I live (California), it is getting hot during the seasons where we’re suppose to get rain or wind. Some of you lucky folks are getting snow, but way too much snow during this time of the year. We’re the ones that are impacting the world causing these climate changes and the future of our planet is just inevitable if nothing is done to stop this mayhem.

Just 2 years ago in 2006, there was a movie documentary filmed called “An Inconvenient Truth“. I haven’t had the chance to watch this movie since I dislike these type of boring documentaries, but I’ve heard that it is worth your time. In this movie, Al Gore talks about Global Warming. I don’t really believe in Global Warming since it’s just all fuss, but Mr. Gore may be right that if we don’t prevent it, we’re just going to kill Earth in a few more hundred years. Some of you guys probably hate Al Gore because all his appearances on Global Warming is just nonsense. A lot of times, these things are really nonsenses, but sooner or later, we believe it. It is better to prevent early than know the outcome. Even the news channels are broadcasting Global Warming events in the world and how the ocean level is slowly decreasing and we’ll soon have no more water.

I keep track of recent news through online news sites and Antarctica just recently encountered a problem. A huge chunk of ice broke off on March 25th and it stretches 160 square miles. What are the scientists blaming this on? Global Warming. This problem may or may not increase sea levels depending if the glaciers move. Parts of Asia are also said to be under water in the future, which includes Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc. I’ll leave the rest of the thinking to you guys

Earth Hour 2008

If you’re a Google fanatic and you tend to use Google search a lot, you probably already notice that the main Google.com homepage turned black some time last night. My bro was actually the one that told me about it, so I decided to check out the situation. It turns out that Google has joined the celebration known as Earth Hour. This event started back in 2007, but many huge corporations and individuals have decided to follow this movement, so you should too.

Background

Earth Hour was created by the World Wildlife Fund in Sydney, Austrailia, in 2007. As I have mentioned, this movement has grown so huge. This event is to make a statement about climate change and hopefully it will make a difference.

What To Do?

Basically what you do is turn off your lights for one whole hour at the stroke of 8PM (Your local time) tonight March 29th. I don’t mean literally only turn off your lights because you should also turn off any type of appliances you may be using that is taking electricity. Because there is no specific time zone to do this at, different companies and corporations may not be available at certain times. One hour is all that is needed to make a huge difference in preventing Global Warming.

Make A Difference

I know that a lot of bloggers do not turn off their computers because blogging is a at home type of thing and turning off your computer may cause your business to fail. Since that is inevitable, you can do other things by using energy efficient products. Make a difference by using less powerful add-ons like a surround sound speaker system or a state of the hard, electricity pulling, computer. It is too late to form a bloggers’ group, but we can still do it and get ready for next year

Make sure you also join the Earth Hour groups to see events around the world:

I hope that by blogging about Earth Hour, I will be able to convince some of my fellow bloggers and readers to also join the movement. To help out the cause, for any blogger that posts a link back to this post, I will provide link love next week

Defining The Laws Of Gravity, Or Is It?

Michelle La — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:42:34 +0000

I’m sure everyone had a wonderful Christmas and I sure did, but for many of us that are students, we still look forward for the rest of the Christmas break (yea, I know how you’re feeling). Since most of us students will go partying, hang out with friends or family, or go to Disneyland (like my wife and I), I’m sure you’re still able to squeeze some time out to define the laws of gravity. Before I start, I can say that you and I is no Isaac Newton, but we can add something to his work. What I’m about to discuss is not only creepy, but it’s going to change the way you think and maybe push you to visit one of these locations.

Gravity hills is what people call these locations that are placed all over the US. Names like “haunted hill”, “magnetic hill”, or “anti-gravity hill” also places into this picture. Many believe that there really are ghosts present to perform tasks that pushes certain things upwards, but is it true? People that visit gravity hills usually test their car, so that’s what I’m going to base it on. There are dozens of these spots all over the United States and finding these spots shouldn’t be a problem if you just search Google. Haven’t you guys ever wanted to feel how gravity is, but didn’t have the money to afford going into space? Well, you can basically experience it now, but with a car instead.

Researchers actually tested these gravity hills and realized that they’re all optical illusions that make downhill slopes look like they’re going uphill. What does that mean you say? It basically means that your eyes are playing tricks on you in thinking that the gravity hill is going uphill when it is in fact going down. This is what causes cars to roll or any type of item you test. Although researchers experimented on the gravity hills, many still believe there is supernatural forces at work.

Some of these locations actually have stories behind them, which causes people to think there are really ghosts. If you do some research on Google, you’ll find background information of the location you used. Maybe you guys should come down to Los Angeles to visit me and check out what haunted stuff we offer.

Led By Robots, You Might Finally Lose Roaches

Michelle La — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:45:24 +0000

Many of you probably don’t see much of these things around your house, but you’re bound to see it a least once every week. Cockroaches are long living insects that can even live for days without their heads. Little do we know that these insects might even be living in our walls, in our rooms, and maybe on our beds. Wherever it is, it doesn’t do any harm to us, but seeing these things walking around disgusts most of us.

I’m also sorry if the header pic disgusts some of you because it certainly does to my wife and I. WE HATE BUGS!!

Scientists have discovered a new way to work around these roach problems that some of us may have in our house. Scientists in Lausanne, Switzerland, have successfully tested the robot roach, InsBot, in these roach colonies. InsBot stands for “insect-like robot” (what a great name right? LOL), which mimics the roaches’ smell and movements to the point where the robot is considered one of their own homies.

“InsBot is green and about the size of a matchbox. It’s equipped with six two-dimensional colour cameras, two tactile antennae, a vibration sensor and a light sensor to detect when a cockroach is present – a difficult task because cockroaches are brown and tend to live in dark environments.”

Most roaches dislike the dark, so therefore we don’t see them much except at night. The scientists that work with the InsBot decided to use the robot to lead the roaches to a lighted room, rather than the a dark area. To their amazement, the roaches actually followed the robot due to companionship.

I’m sure some of you may have heard of these type of robots being made in the past, but they weren’t successful do the the size. The Insbot is the future and it seems like it’s working very well. The main reason for scientists experimenting with these type of robots is because they’re planning to move onto bigger projects. These type of projects are going to involve animals and could eventually control the animals’ behavior. With the Insbot, infestation in houses can be relieved easily.

“The ultimate goal of the project is to gain a better understanding of how animals interact to create a sort of collective intelligence. It may lead to innovative forms of artificial intelligence. I’m hoping it leads to more influence over pests.”

So I wonder who’s going to purchase these and use them in their house? I’m sure you’re going to have to put in a hefty amount because these things don’t come cheap.

Sources: IT Pro, Technovelgy