Money Seeds

Adgitize to close imminently

2011-12-27T10:50:00.003-05:00

After 3 years, Adgitize will be closing down. The owner, Ken Brown, sent out an email telling members that the site had become no longer profitable and explained what will happen next.Account signups and new ad submissions have been closed, and on January 1, all ads will stop running.If you have used Adgitize, make sure you have a valid Paypal address associated with your account. A prorated

How much traffic does $20 bring you?

2011-12-19T13:14:00.000-05:00

I just read a fascinating series of blog posts from Sodaware - about advertising, and how much traffic you can get for $19.95.He examined a whole slew of different advertising and marketing methods, both free and pay - for the pay ad services, his budget was $19.95, and for the free marketing, he set a time limit of a half hour. This was a smart way to compare services, because as they say,

You Can't Do it All: The Upsides of Outsourcing

2011-12-11T16:17:00.002-05:00

When someone starts their own business, they quickly learn they have to take on many hats: web designer, marketer, graphic designer, editor & proofreader, accountant, customer service... and that's besides whatever the business is actually for! Some people are blessed with the skills to do many of these well, but there's always something that you're not good at, and once the business grows past a

Free Promotion or Theft? The Fine Line, and treating your readers well

2011-08-19T17:29:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, when someone is working to build a brand or promote a product, they can get anxious about anyone else encroaching on their territory. By trying to keep their audience close enough so they won't slip away, they actually have them in a chokehold - thus missing out on opportunities. With a bit more freedom, your true fans can be your greatest asset for free and effortless promotion. Let

Digital Content is Perfect for Passive Income

2011-07-20T04:52:00.002-04:00

Selling digital content is an ideal passive income stream. The reason is, once you've written, designed, photographed, recorded, or otherwise created your content, it's there for good and you can sell as many copies as you like. Unlike selling physical tangible objects, you have infinite stock and so long as someone wants to buy your item, they are able to.Some examples of digital content are:

When will Entrecard get cleaned up?

2011-06-27T06:32:00.001-04:00

I've been using Entrecard for a long time now. The site has certainly gone down hill, but it has brought me a small amount of traffic and I've met people and discovered blogs that I really enjoy. So, I've stuck with it, even though I'm not as active as I once was. However, the Entrecard staff seems to have all but disappeared. Blogs everywhere are breaking the guidelines, and nothing has been

Traffic from PostZoom

2011-06-04T09:05:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I signed my main blog up to PostZoom. It's a website meant to be a directory of categorized blog posts, bringing quality posts to visitors and some extra traffic to bloggers. So, does it work? Let's see...There are two things you need to do in order to start getting traffic from PostZoom. First, you have to have the widget on your blog. This widget can go anywhere - I put mine in

Layout Tweaks: Dos and Don'ts

2011-05-02T12:12:00.001-04:00

The web is not static - it's always changing. It behooves a webmaster to change their layout every once in a while -- but maybe not too often. Keep these things in mind, while editing your layout.1. Change is good.There is always room for improvement in a website design. Make things easier to find, adjust your copy, make it slicker. Grab people's attention. A lot of web design these days is just

Entrecard and Project Wonderful: Hidden Gems

2011-04-30T06:49:00.002-04:00

As you're dropping Entrecards, you may notice that a lot of blogs feature Project Wonderful advertising. Project Wonderful is a pretty neat service, because it allows advertisers to compete for ad space in an 'infinite auction'. It's win-win for advertisers and publishers, because the publishers get a fair price for their ad space, and advertisers can get some good deals. If an ad space is in

Four ingredients for website traffic

2011-04-25T12:54:00.003-04:00

Everyone who has a website wants more traffic coming into it. Unfortunately, webpages are a dime a dozen and most will languish in obscurity. There are a million articles about how to drive traffic to your web site, but here's my take.There are four main ingredients for increased web traffic: participation, originality, time, and a good dose of luck.1. Participate. Being active in the community

The frugality of hobbies

2010-11-12T06:04:00.001-05:00

Over at my knitting blog, I have posted an article on the frugality of knitting, which also applies to other hobbies - gardening, birdwatching, photography, what-have-you. What are your thoughts? Can a hobby that requires you to purchase expensive equipment be, in the long run, a frugal decision? What is the price of your entertainment?~Joy

'Above the Fold' - history of a design term

2010-03-06T11:07:00.002-05:00

If you've done anything with web design, if you have a website, or especially if you use Entrecard, you've probably hear the term 'above the fold'. What exactly does it mean, and where does it come from? This internet website design term actually has much older, and quite interesting, origins.In a web design context, your above the fold content is what your reader sees without having to scroll

I got paid! (And you can too - ING Sharebuilder)

2009-10-22T11:54:00.003-04:00

Just recently I got paid from an ING ShareBuilder promotion - I opened an account, put in $50, and they gave me a $50 bonus. I doubled my money just by letting it sit and wait! I didn't make any trades, but if you have some money you'd like to invest Sharebuilder seems like a really nice place to do it. Using this link, you can get a $25 bonus yourself when you make your first trade. Try

Cash for your opinion on Make Money Online sites (and a BONUS!)

2009-09-18T17:10:00.005-04:00

I've been exploring lots of ways of making money online, but it's hard to know what's legitimate or worthwhile. The folks at Internet Marketing Report Card are compiling a site full of reviews for services like Entrecard, Adgitize, paid survey sites, web hosts, and much more.IM Report Card needs people who have tried out various internet marketing programs and products to give their opinions on

Free Money: ING $25 Account Bonus links (Updated)

2009-09-03T14:33:00.004-04:00

One of the easiest ways to generate passive income is through interest: When you open a savings account, your money is earning money for you. An online savings account is a great place to keep an emergency fund that will earn you interest, and I have had nothing but great experiences with ING Direct.ING Direct Electric Orange Savings Account has been a real help for me in keeping some extra money

Adgitize blog advertising network for traffic and money!

2009-08-11T11:29:00.000-04:00

I love Adgitize! After mediocre results with other advertising programs, both as a publisher and an advertiser, Adgitize has restored my faith in running ads and in displaying ads. Adgitize is a program that works for me, and boy does it work great.Adgitize for publishers is based on a points system, with a maximum of 500 points per day. You get points through clicking on ads, pageviews, ad views

Leaving Quality Comments to Help Your Blog

2009-08-02T16:16:00.002-04:00

Blog comments are key to being visible and forming relationships in the blogosphere. As a blogger, you should not remain silent. Write posts on your own blog, and seek out others to comment on. There are a number of reasons why you should leave comments on other people's blogs.Community. Your blog does not occur in a vacuum. There are millions of bloggers out there, many of which have blogs on

Understanding DoFollow and NoFollow links

2009-07-31T16:09:00.001-04:00

Start reading some blogs about blogging, and I give you about ten minutes before you read something about dofollow and nofollow relations. Dofollow and Nofollow are important concepts for website building and search engine optimization, but they can be hard to understand.Dofollow and Nofollow are all about backlinks, and what those backlinks will do. Traditionally, a backlink will pass PageRank

Google PageRank: What is it, how is it calculated, why is it important?

2009-07-26T22:38:00.001-04:00

The word on every blogger's lips is PageRank, or PR for short. If you're new to blogging and your blog is your first website, you might not understand what PR is, or what exactly it means, or indeed why is Google Page Rank important.In a nutshell, your page rank will help determine how high or low you fall in Google's search results. A very big, successful website will have a high PR which means

Entrecard for increasing blog traffic

2009-07-24T21:24:00.002-04:00

Using Entrecard on your blog - it's a controversial topic, gaining more controversy by the day it seems. And they like it that way - the Entrecard view is, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Entrecard creator Graham Langdon has said "I’m always amazed how controversy drives record numbers of signups."Depending on how you use it, Entrecard can be a powerful force of good or bad on your blog.

Keeping organized as a blogger - Write your posts in advance

2009-07-12T21:54:00.002-04:00

The best advice I ever learned about blogging was this: Write your articles in advance. It's a lot easier to blog several times a week (or every day) when you have a big pile of drafts waiting to be polished up and posted, rather than having to pull a post out of thin air when it's time to publish.I try to keep 2 or 3 fully-written articles on deck, between my three blogs. Besides that, I keep at

You need Google Analytics for your website!

2009-07-11T18:57:00.006-04:00

--Or something like Google Analytics, anyway.Google Analytics is a free, easy-to-use method of gathering statistics on your website. You put a small piece of code into your website, and Google will start collecting data on your visitors. You will receive information on how many people are visiting, how long they are staying, what browser they are using, what search keywords or what websites they

How soon will your blog get search engine traffic?

2009-07-09T14:39:00.003-04:00

Websites can get a large portion of their traffic from search engines, so it's always a waiting game wondering how soon a new site will start appearing in search results. You can submit your site to the search engines, give them site maps, and ping them, but how soon will people be able to search for you?On July 7, my book review blog This Girl's Bookshelf got its first search engine hit. The

Planting Money Seeds to generate Passive Income

2009-07-08T19:28:00.004-04:00

No one will get rich quick making money online. Blogging is just not the key to quick easy cash. The thing is, having your own website or blog can generate something much more powerful over time than some quick money. The power of blogging lies in its ability to generate passive income.Passive income is a great kind of income to have. As some people say, it's "making money while you sleep".