Start Making Money Online

Survey Scout Research - Get Paid for Your Opinion

2010-09-19T16:27:00.000+05:30

Survey Scout Research is an easy way to earn cash and rewards just by voicing your opinions. Companies need your help to improve their products and services, and in return you get paid for answering their surveys. Survey Scout Research is different than other survey sites. Other survey sites only pay you for surveys you qualify for and complete. Survey Scout Research pay you for each survey you participate in. Plus, you are offered the best rewards anywhere. You can take your earnings as cash and Survey Scout Research's partner Payoneer will mail you a prepaid debit card or use them to buy gift certificates at Amazon or even exchange them for gift certificates to your favorite restaurants.

How to get more surveys from Survey Scout Research?
When you register, you'll see a series of several profiles on your dashboard. The more of these you answer completely and honestly the more relevant surveys you will be qualified. That's all you have to do! Once your profiles are complete, you should start receiving survey invitations in your inbox. Anyone 13 years of age or older can participate and earn rewards! It is absolutely free to join.

PS: But, don't expect to get rich taking online surveys. You can make a few dollars a week in rewards, but not millions.

31 Days to Building a Better Blog

2010-09-11T23:16:00.000+05:30

If you have a blog which you feel needs improvement, they you must have a look at Darren Rowse's "31 Days to Building a Better Blog". Darren Rowse blogs at Problogger. I feel "31 Days to Building a Better Blog" is a must have for every blogger. It's a downloadable e-book designed to help bloggers revitalize their blogs by giving them 31 tasks that will all help to turn it into the page view powerhouse every blogger have always dreamed of.

For more details on how to use this book, please visit "31 Days to Building a Better Blog".

Have a great day!!

How Important Are The Tags?

2010-09-06T17:03:00.000+05:30

A simple, but sometimes overlooked way to promote your site is to use tags. Most blogs like blogger let you add tags to each of your posts. Tags are general terms that help describe your post. For instance, if you have a post all about 'cooking' you could have tags like cooking, recipes, cooking tips, etc.

When you use these tags over and over again and if you can click on any tag, and it will take you to a collection of all posts that have that particular tag in it. This can also be useful if you want to submit multiple posts to a place like digg, delicious, technorati etc.

Plus, all kinds of other sites let you add tags to your submissions. Tags not only allow people and search engines to find your content easier, but they can also help you organize your site. This is one of the basics, but it is very, very important if you are looking to drive more traffic to your site. So don't forget to add your tags to all your posts.

Importance of Anchor Text

2010-09-01T16:51:00.003+05:30

Anchor Text is the visible or clickable text that is used to link to a particular page on the Internet.It can also be called link label or link title. Anchor text usually gives the user relevant descriptive or contextual information about the content of the link's destination. The anchor text may or may not be related to the actual text of the URL of the link. For example, the anchor texts 'Make money online', 'online money making tips', 'Make money with cloudcrowd' etc links to respective posts on this blog.

A HTML code is used to turn an Anchor Text into a link. An example of Anchor Text with the HTMl code is given below :-
<a href = "http://smmo-startmakingmoneyonline.blogspot.com/">Start Making Money Online</a>

The text 'Start Making money Online' is the Anchor Text and the rest is the code which is pointing to my home page. This is the basic code but there can be other attributes added inside the code like rel="nofollow"(used to stop search engines from following the link) or target="_blank" (used to open the link in a new window) depending on the purpose.

Why is it Important?
An Anchor Text appears much more suited to the surrounding text then the URL which looks rather odd. An Anchor Text also has a better ability to expresses the subject of the page to which it is linking to in a short and comprehensive manner if used properly.

Search engines take anchor text as one of the key parameter to display the search results. Anchor text is weighted (ranked) highly in search engine algorithms, because the linked text is usually relevant to the landing page. The objective of search engines is to provide highly relevant search results; this is where anchor text helps, as the tendency was, more often than not, to hyperlink words relevant to the landing page.

Webmasters or blog owners may use anchor text to procure high results in search engine results pages. Google's Webmaster Tools facilitate this optimization by letting website owners view the most common words in anchor text linking to their site.

Choosing the Anchor Text

Anchor Text is one of the great optimization techniques that is to be taken care of while linking your pages may it be with internal or external links.

Choose the keyword phrase for which you want to optimize or rank well in search engine results pages as your Anchor Text. Say for example - you want to optimize a particular post for the keyword phrase "blog promotion", then choose "blog promotion" and its variations as your Anchor Text for the links pointing to that page - simple! A wrong idea is to use something like "To know how to promote your blog, click here". They use 'click here' or 'here' as the anchor text to the post they want their readers to visit. It's absolutely a wrong idea and doesn't do any good.

Links to a page can come in basically two ways - the first is through organic ways that is when somebody likes your blog or a particular post in your blog he puts a link in his blog pointing to your blog or to that post using an Anchor Text of his choice so these links contain a variation of Anchor Text which can not be manipulated and are considered as natural - and the second way to get links is by adopting various means like leaving blog comments, leaving forum comments etc whose Anchor Text can be manipulated to contain the keywords of our choice. Now if you make too many links with the same Anchor Text then Google and also many other search engines can detect and consider links with the same Anchor Text from multiple sources as spam and being made by humans to manipulate search engine results artificially so penalizes those sites. So making links with the Anchor Text as variations of the keywords you want to optimize your blog for will just make the links look natural to search engines and you will escape the penalty.

For example, some variations of the Anchor Text "blog promotion" can be "promoting a blog", "tips on blog promotion", "how to promote a blog" etc. There can be thousands of variations possible limited only by your imagination. Just choose a few and start using them as Anchor Text to get back links to your blog or site.

If you have difficulty in making variations you can use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool which is a free service. Just type in the keyword phrase in the box, fill in the captcha and press "Get keyword ideas" tab to obtain many variations. Choose those containing your keywords.

Any questions or suggestions?

Online Money Making Ideas One Should Avoid

2010-08-26T22:09:00.000+05:30

There are plethora of wonderful online money making ideas out there to try, but you should also know which ones to avoid. You know, everyone wants your hard earned money, and they will say and do anything to get it. You can call them scammers. Chances are you have bought an E-Book online that didn't really help you much.

You are not alone. I was scammed a lot myself when first starting off in internet marketing. I bought a lot of those E-Books that promised me I would make a huge sum of money over a short period of time. The sad truth is that a lot of people fall for these tricks simply because they need money. And it sounds good when someone says, " Buy my E-Book for $29.99 and learn how to make $200 per hour".

Now I am not saying that every single E-Book ever created is a waste, just most of them. So please avoid getting scammed by these people. I would hate for you to be spending your money on things that are not going to help you much in internet marketing.

There are so many other traps. Guaranteed #1 ranking in google for a particular keyword, guaranteed signups and guaranteed traffic are a few. Also try to stay away from paid surveys, even though I know a few people who have made some decent money, I still wouldn't recommend you doing paid surveys. Why? because this entire niche is full of scammers. Again not every single site is a scam, but the odds are not on your side. I discussed paid surveys in one of my previous posts.

So, I just wanted to give you a quick heads up of what kind of things you need to stay away from. You can still try these money making ideas just make sure that you also understand the risk involved.

$10 Giveaway

2010-08-20T22:21:00.004+05:30

I am happy to announce a $10 giveaway. The rules are very simple and the winner will be selected randomly. All you have to do is to follow the given points.

Subscribe to this blog via RSS feed or email.
Follow me on Twitter and retweet "Start Making Money Online: $10 #Giveaway http://bit.ly/9ABAnN via @mmo_crazy".
Like 'Start Making Money Online' on Facebook and share about this giveaway on Facebook.
Leave a comment with your details(all links to your status updates).

A winner will be chosen randomly and announced here on Sep 15, 2010. The payment will be processed through Alertpay. If you don't have an Alertpay account, register it here.

PS: If the number of participants is less, the contest will be closed.

Surfjunky is a big scam

2010-08-18T18:14:00.000+05:30

Surfjunky is an autosurf program which pays its members to visit other websites through Surfjunky's 'surf bar' . It claims to pay you anywhere from $0.45 to $0.75 per hour of surfing. It also has a 3 level referral program, so you can build up a huge network and make some serious cash. You can just hit 'earn money' tab and leave it. It just runs itself and you need not even take a look at it to make money. This sounds good, yeah? But there is a catch – Surfjunky is a BIG SCAM!

Surfjunky has a minimum payout of $25 and it’s reported that no member saw any cash, ever! How? Just before payout, Surfjunky deletes your account with an accusation that you’ve used illegal programs to inflate your payout rate, and after that there’s nothing you can do about it. All your hard work goes down the drain! As there is not much work you have to do to make money with Surfjunky, I gave it a try. I open the tab to earn money and leave it for hours and check it in between. And finally, when I reached the payout amount, I requested a cash out. I haven't been paid till now and when I contacted them twice, there has been no reply. They don't even have any payment proofs.

If you are already a user of Surfjunky, I would recommend you to stop using it.

Monitor your Blog Performance on the Social Web

2010-08-15T22:11:00.000+05:30

Want to know how your blog is doing on social sites like Twitter and Facebook?

Simply go to twitter.labnol.org/analytics, type the feed address of your blog (or any other web site that offers an RSS feed), and hit the ‘go’ button.

The tool will tell you exactly how many times your most recent stories have been shared on Twitter and Facebook.

Originally Published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal.

Increase RSS subscribers with rssHugger

2010-08-14T23:16:00.002+05:30

rssHugger is a unique website that aims to bring bloggers and readers together. rssHugger aims to provide blog owners with a unique easy-to-use way to promote their blogs by sending them traffic, building backlinks for search engine optimization, as well as attracting new rss subscribers if the content is interesting to the reader. rssHugger aims to help visitors be able to easily find blogs that write about subjects they are interested in. These subjects include: internet marketing, making money online, charity, sports, gambling, and many more. If the visitors find a blog that they had not previously heard about, they can easily add it to their RSS readers or bookmark it.

There are two ways you can register your blog at rssHugger. Either you can get your blog listed freely or you can get it listed for $20. If you want your blog listed for free, you need to write a review about this site on your blog with a link. Then your blog will be manually reviewed by the rssHugger team. If you don't want to review rssHugger on your blog, then you can pay a one time review fee of $20 and get your blog listed.

I feel that it's not a bad idea to write a review about rssHugger on your blog when you are getting a backlink and traffic to your blog. It's a good website to give a try.

How to Add a Signature to Every Blog Post in Blogger/Blogspot

2010-08-14T20:39:00.001+05:30

If you have a blog, you would definitely want your signature after every post on your blog. Your signature can be RSS feed of your blog or an image of your name or anything that you want after every post. I'm going to show you how this can be done.

First of all, you must have a signature that you want to have at the bottom of every post. If you want an image of your name, you can get it from some online websites like My Live Signature that help you in creating signatures. You can upload your image to any online photo sharing websites like Flickr and keep the image link.

After you are ready with your signature, you can follow the simple steps given below.

Login to your blogger account.
Go to your blogger Dashboard and go to Design-->Edit HTML.
Check Expand Widget Templates.
Save your Template before editing.
Then search for a line containing "post-footer-line post-footer-line-1" or "data:post.body".
Add , if you are using an image or add your own html code, if you are using your own text, below any of the above lines.
Save your template.

That's it. You are done.

How to create a good Squidoo lens?

2010-08-13T22:16:00.001+05:30

Squidoo is one of the great ways to promote your website or blog or business. I generated a few Squidoo lenses a few months back. Those lenses got some good rank after a few days. But, I've not updated them since then and I can see now how bad it is. From my experience I have put together a few Squidoo tips so that you can create a good Squidoo lens.

You are given the option of selecting a title and a unique web address for your squidoo lens, when creating it. Add relevant keywords in the title and the url.
You are also given the option of selecting tags that describe your lens. Make sure to add as many relevant tags as you can.
A strong introduction takes your lens a long way. So, make sure that your introduction module is strong.
As we always know, content is the king for any article. So populate your lens with quality content.
Use sections or subsections(Text Modules) extensively.
One or two good and relevant images add more value to your lens. They give your lens a nice appearance.
There are different modules which can earn you some money from Squidoo. Choose products that are relevant to the content of your lens. Add your own descriptions to the products chosen for those modules. It's not a good idea to choose random products. The best way to use these modules is to place them in between your content modules. For ex: Your lens should be like Intro Module, Content Module1(Section/Sub-section), Revenue Module, RSS Module, Content Module2, Revenue Module, Other modules etc.
You can use your website or blog's RSS feed in RSS feed module.
Use links to your blog or website or product where necessary. Don't use too many links. A good keyword rich link can have a good effect on your blog's google ranking.
An important point that should not be neglected is to update your lens once in a while to increase its rank.
You can promote your lens the you promote your blog or website.

Got any tips to share with us? Add them in the comments.

EditZen Referral Program - CloudCrowd's expansion

2010-08-09T21:36:00.011+05:30

CloudCrowd has announced the launch of EditZen referral program recently.

The EditZen Referral Program is a great way to earn extra money by simply referring people to EditZen's editing and proofreading service. You can potentially earn thousands of dollars a year. Your earnings are only limited by the number of people you refer. You'll receive 20% of all sales made by your referrals through November 7, 2010 and 10% of all sales made after November 7, 2010. Your commissions are paid daily through PayPal transfers.

What is EditZen?

EditZen is a proofreading and editing service which taps the power of CloudCrowd's base of credentialed editors to deliver high quality editing and proofreading quickly, and cost-effectively. Users can upload individual documents at EditZen and receive their finished documents back in 24 hours. EditZen can also handle high-volume editing work on a batch basis or by working with you to allow access to EditZen services seamlessly from your application. Whether you have a single document or thousands of documents, EditZen's scalable solution can handle your job. Low cost, 24 hour turnaround and 100% money back guarantee are EditZen's plus points.

How it Works

Upload your MS Word document.
EditZen calculates the number of billable pages based on one page equaling 300 words.
You can Pay with a major credit card or Paypal account.
After receiving payment, EditZen edits your entire document and then completes a full quality review.
Within 24 hours of receiving payment, EditZen delivers a final, edited version of your document and notifies you via email.
They use MS Word's Track Changes features so you can easily see where each edit was made.

What EditZen does when you submit your document?

Your entire document will be proofread, edited, and reviewed by a team of qualified, credentialed editors. Your editors will carefully check your document for hundreds of common errors that can trip up even good writers. When your editors find a mistake, they'll make a correction using Microsoft Word's "Track Changes" feature so you can see exactly what was changed.

How to get started with the EditZen referral program?

Sign up for the CloudCrowd service on Facebook(if you don't have it already).
Go to 'My Crowds' tab in the CloudCrowd application page.
You can find the EditZen Referral Program listed along with the CloudCrowd Worker Referral Program.
Read over the EditZen Referral Program resource page for more details.
Click the "Click to activate" link to enable the EditZen program.
Spread the word about EditZen's fast and affordable editing and proofreading service by incorporating your referral link at appropriate places.

PS: Even a small "misteak" can make a bad impression. Don't take chances with your writing.

Top Online Payment Processors

2010-08-07T10:22:00.006+05:30

For a person like you who intends to make money online or start and run an online home-based business, it is vital to have at least one Online Payment Processor account. As a matter of fact, it is like an online bank account or your Internet wallet. Even if you don´t have your own business yet, and you normally work with some other online money making programs such as PPC, PTC, Affiliate Networks, it is necessary to have an online payment processor account in order to get paid on the Internet.

How to Choose a Good Online Payment Processor?

First of all, I need to point out some important features of a good Internet Payment Processor. It is recommended to take these features into account, before you choose an online payment processor:

It should be absolutely free to register.
Registration should be simple and fast. It should not take a long time or a complicated process.
The system must be popular. That is to say, it should be accepted by many programs on the Internet.
It should be possible to transfer money between your Internet Payment Processor and your physical bank account.
It must be a reliable and secure Payment Processor. Be careful with lots of SCAMS out there trying to deceive you!

Top Online Secure Payment Processors:

While there are several Internet Payment systems or services out there, but the point is that you don´t need to register with all of them. Here I have listed some of the most popular Online Secure Payment Processors. If you have not signed up yet, go and open an account right now!

PayPal: It is literally the fastest, most affordable and convenient online payment service for any kind of business with more than 100 million accounts in 190 countries and regions. You can add funds from your bank account to your PayPal account, and withdraw funds from your PayPal account to your bank account, simply and quickly. There are thousands of programs on the Internet which work with this Secure Online Payment Processor and send or request money through this great Internet Payment Account with their e-mail addresses. As an online business owner, you will definitely need to join this Payment Processor. It is FREE.
AlertPay:
It is an Online Payment Solution which enables any business or consumer to send and receive Internet payments with their e-mail addresses, securely, quickly and cost-effectively. Also, you are able to add or withdraw your funds through different methods such as Electronic Funds Transfer, Mail, E-Currencies, etc. It is FREE to join.
Moneybookers: It enables any business or consumer with an e-mail address to securely and cost-effectively send and receive payments online. You can send money via e-mail from your credit/debit card or bank account, make online purchases and/or collect money via e-mail addresses. You are welcome to join this Global Internet Payment Solution from every nation of the earth, absolutely FREE. Besides, you are able to upload or withdraw funds through different methods such as Bank Transfer or Credit Cards.

As I said before, the above-mentioned systems are among the Top Online Secure Payment Processors out there. I don´t think it is necessary to join all of the existing Online Payment Processors. It depends on the programs you register with in order to receive money. Once you join these payment processors, you will be able to build your Internet Business and start making money online.

CloudCrowd - A Facebook Application that earns you money

2010-08-03T21:09:00.001+05:30

What do you do on Facebook? Well, most of us use Facebook to add new friends, connecting with friends, playing games and use interesting application etc.

More than that you can earn some money on Facebook by using a simple application CloudCrowd. If you enjoy doing simple tasks, you can easily make money using CloudCrowd.

CloudCrowd is a company that allows you to make money directly on Facebook when you complete some tasks. You can work wherever you want, and whenever you want. You get paid get paid through PayPal the next day! This makes it a great job for anyone who wants to work from home.

Instead of spending your time on playing games, quizzes etc on Facebook, you can put in a few minutes of work and get paid for it.

What are the tasks available?
Typical tasks include image and video tagging, finding information online, and quick writing and editing projects. Work ranges in difficulty, and longer tasks typically pay more. The amount of money you can earn depends on the type of work and the amount of time you spend. With the variety of tasks offered, I'm sure you'll find tasks you enjoy.

How do you get Paid?
There is no minimum payout amount. You get paid the next business day via PayPal when your work is approved before 5:00PM Pacific Time. You need a PayPal account to get paid for the work you do on CloudCrowd. If you don't already have one, sign up for your free account here.

I, personally, like CloudCrowd very much. I've been paid for the simple tasks that I've done till now.

Register today at CloudCrowd and start making some money.

Paypal Resumes Electronic Fund Withdrawals in India

2010-08-03T21:01:00.001+05:30

Just 2 days after Paypal had announced that they will be stopping electronic fund withdrawals or direct deposits to Indian banks, Paypal surprised everyone by reversing its decision to stop electronic fund withdrawls.

Indian users can now perform electronic withdrawls as they did before. The Paypal team also mentioned that they will continue providing the $5 USD processing fee refund for any cheque withdrawals made from July 29, 2010 until further notice.

Here is the official announcement made by Paypal.

This announcement of resuming electronic withdrawal service is a huge relief to millions of PayPal users in India. It's glad that Paypal resolved the issue pretty quickly.

Web Analytics Tools for Tracking Visitors to Your Blog

2010-07-29T18:49:00.001+05:30

If you are new to blogging and have a great blog or website, then I'm sure you want to keep track of your blog visitors. As you might have worked hard on promoting your blog, you now might be wondering if all that hard work is really paying off. That's where these tracking tools come into picture.
Tracking your visitors helps converting one time visitors to regular loyal visitors.

There are so many tracking websites that give you the statistics of the visitors to your website or blog. Google Analytics, Stat Counter, Site Meter, Hit Stats are a few and the most important ones.

Google Analytics:
Google Analytics is on of the most popular analytic among webmasters. It is a free service that provides you with a graph showing how many people visited your site. The tool also lets you see which pages visitors clicked, how many unique visitors went to your site, and information on where the most people entered and exited. It's not nearly as advanced as other apps in this roundup, but it's certainly the easiest to use. If you want something simple and accurate, Google Analytics is for you. Google has recently introduced "Real time analytics" feature for the blogspot blogs.

Stat Counter:
StatCounter is free, so you won't find much advanced help like you will in paid apps. But what it lacks in advanced features, it makes up for in customization. For any metric, the site lets you choose the time span of data you want to view. You can also decide which information should be included in the graph, how it's displayed (area or bar graph), and much more. You can create a fully customized chart to get minute detail on any traffic figure impacting your site. And since it's free, StatCounter is definitely worth trying out.

Site Meter:
Site Meter’s comprehensive real time website tracking and counter tools give you instant access to vital information and data about your sites audience. With the detailed reporting you’ll have a clear picture of who is visiting your site, how they found you, where they came from, what interests them and much more.

Hit Stats:
Histats.com sports the slickest design of any tool in this roundup. You'll find common tracking elements like page views, visitors, and referral information, but that's all displayed in the most user-friendly design I've seen in this space. The graphs are gorgeous. The app's ease of use is unparalleled, thanks to slick menus. And changing the data you want to look at is simple. I was really impressed by Histats (and its free price tag).

Which analytics tools are you using?

Paypal Suspended Electronic Fund Withdrawal or Direct Deposits in India

2010-07-28T16:41:00.001+05:30

The series of Paypal issues in India continues. Paypal has always been the first choice for online transaction for all online earners and vendors in India. It is easy to use and provides the maximum facilities for Indian users. This is the second time Paypal has disappointed its users in India in the last 6 months. Few months back Paypal stopped personal payments in Indians and this time Paypal has stopped Electronic Withdrawal or Direct Deposits in India.

However, the will refund $5 against cheque withdrawal until further notice. But, I think, it won't take long before they start charging that $5 for cheques.

The official mail from Paypal says:

"In accordance with regulatory instructions, we would like to notify you about a change in our withdrawal functionality in India starting on August 1, 2010. At present you can request for either an electronic or cheque withdrawal of funds from your PayPal account if you are an India user.

From July 29, 2010 onwards, you will only be able to request for a cheque withdrawal of funds from your PayPal account.

While we are working hard to restore the electronic withdrawal service, in the meantime, we are bringing this matter to your attention so that you can plan your future withdrawal activities accordingly.

To request for a cheque withdrawal:

Log into your PayPal account, click on 'Withdraw'.

Click on the 'Request a cheque from PayPal' link.

Enter the withdrawal amount and select your mailing address, then click 'Continue'.

Click 'Submit' to confirm your request.

In order to help you with this change and until further notice, we will refund the $5 USD cheque withdrawal fee to you for cheque withdrawals made on July 29, 2010 onwards.

For any questions, please log into your PayPal account and click 'Contact Us' at the bottom of the page.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused from this change in our withdrawal functionality. We will provide ongoing updates to you here. We thank you for your attention and patience as we work tirelessly to resolve this situation as quickly as possible."

I feel that India's electronic fund tranfer is in a mess as indians are reached first for outsourcing, and most of the freelancers work from India. Now the only option for Indian is to either withdraw funds from paypal through Cheque or select some Paypal Alternative. Withdrawing through cheque is time taking and a bit expensive.

Any ideas how this issue can be solved?

Should the nofollow attribute be used on internal links?

2010-07-27T15:26:00.000+05:30

There has been a lot of discussion on the usage of 'nofollow' within your website/blog.

Google's Matt Cutts recently posted a video on the topic of PageRank sculpting using the nofollow attribute and/or using the nofollow attribute on internal links. Matt says it doen't hurt to have your site's login page in search results. What's the point in having your login page in the search results? Does it provide any information to the users? I don't agree with him on this one.

In short, Matt says do not use it for internal links - never, as your pagerank will be effected.

Matt's stand is completely different from Google’s webmaster site that recommends the use of nofollow in some scenarios:

Search engine robots can’t sign in or register as a member on your forum, so there’s no reason to invite Googlebot to follow “register here” or “sign in” links. Using nofollow on these links enables Googlebot to crawl other pages you’d prefer to see in Google’s index.

What's your stand on this topic? Do you use nofollow on your site's internal links?

What If you accidentally click your Adsense ads?

2010-07-25T20:28:00.000+05:30

I must have read a lot of stories about accidental clicking and banishment from AdSense, and what I remember the most was this: "Every time you accidentally click on your AdSense ads, report it to AdSense or you'll get banned!"

According to AdSense official blog, reporting accidental clicks is totally unnecessary:

"Because we closely monitor all account activity using engineering systems and thorough human analysis, chances are we've already detected your clicks on your ads and discounted them. While these clicks still show in your reports, we filter out their associated earnings so that advertisers aren't charged."

A lot of people got banned from AdSense, but I'm sure non of them were banned for a few accidental clicks. One of my friends clicked on his ads a few months ago and haven't notified AdSense about it. But his account is still opened.

Anyway, I don't encourage you click on your google ads :)

Has your account been banned for accidental clicks?

Paid Surveys - Can you really make money with them?

2010-07-08T22:06:00.000+05:30

With all the attention – both negative and positive – that online paid surveys are getting these days, I am sure some of you have preconceived ideas about paid surveys already. However, as with most other things, it is better if you do some background research (as you are probably doing now because you are reading this post) before you pass any judgment.

Online paid surveys have got a lot of flak and some of them are not unjustified. There are several reasons for this, the main one would be the scammers out there who just want your personal details so that they can spam you. Yet there are legitimate online paid survey sites and market research companies out there who are definitely not scammers but nevertheless do not provide the expectations of their panelists.

If you are like me, your main goal in taking online paid surveys is to earn cash. This is the main issue even with legit online paid survey sites actually. Though many of them are not out to scam you, they do not actually pay cash for their surveys. Instead, you get trinkets and other token rewards. Otherwise, you are just entered for a cash drawing. Those drawings involve considerable amounts of money but of course, what are the chances of you actually winning them on a regular basis?

Our best bet then is to pinpoint the sites that actually do pay cash for each survey taken. These sites will not probably pay much – several dollars at best. It may not seem much but many little things add up to bigger things. So you can sign up with as many sites as possible and make sure that these sites do pay cash (no matter how small) for each and every survey completed. As you will probably get a limited amount of surveys per company(which is legit) anyway, you just make sure that you can make up for it with quantity. Several dollars per week per site actually adds up to a fair amount in a month’s time.

You might be wondering where these survey companies get the money from, in order to pay their users.

They actually do get a lot in return for paying you to answer their surveys. Big brand names pays this survey companies to help them in researching, assessing, and testing the applicability of new products or experimenting with new advertising methods for their existing products. These collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn from the consumer responses is having incalculable monetary, intellectual, or financial worth to them.

The data can be used to find the right market for their product and estimate interest in their products. They can also test advertising before they spend a huge amount of money on a national advertising campaign.

Not only do the companies get a huge amount of sum from the information gathered from consumer responses, but they can even use the amount in the aggregate to form very detailed ideas of what a certain market segment wants or needs. Consumer testing done through paid surveys are one of the most important methods of research and testing that big companies use to research, develop and market their products. It's a win-win for them, for the consumer and for the people taking and answering the surveys.

Does Submitting Articles to Article Directories Help?

2010-07-06T20:32:00.000+05:30

As a blogger you love to write articles. But have you ever thought of submitting your articles to leading article directories? If you haven't, do it immediately.

Article directories have become very popular and so is article marketing. It is a great way of establishing your brand on the internet. And yes, submitting to article directories helps in many ways.

Following are the benefits of submitting your articles to article directories.

It helps you market yourself and your products. It is a great way to brand yourself, your webiste and your business by including a brief biography of yourself in the resource box provided by these directories.
It is a kind of free advertising. You write an article related to your blog content and submit it to the right category. If people who are looking for articles in that category, they are more likely to visit your article. So, submitting articles to article directories is a source of free advertising.
If your Articles are placed on the publishers home page this will give you and your website/blog some of the extra exposure that is hard to get online today.
You can build credibility and can eventually become an expert in your niche by submitting articles.
It helps you to get links to your website/blog. Getting quality backlinks is one of the key elements for every blog to get ranked higher. In each article you write, you provide a few links(not too many) to your blog or blog posts. Some of the directories don't allow you to put links to your webiste in the content page. In that case you can use your resource box. It is a cost effective way to get quality backlinks.
It helps you get traffic to your website/blog. If someone reads your articles and likes them, they will be much more interested in your blog too. If you submit good and quality articles, you will surely get a lot of good traffic to your website/blog.
It helps you increase your pagerank. As mentioned earlier, submitting articles helps you get backlinks to your website/blog from article directories with high pagerank. If you get more backlinks from those directories, your page rank will eventually increase.
If your articles have a great value and many readers like them, they are more likely to use your articles on their websites/blogs. As these article directories require those people to give credit to the original author, you will get more and more readers, and reputation.
You can even be hired by some people to write for their webistes, if they like your articles and your style of writing.
And finally it is free to submit articles to these directories.

As you can see there are so many benefits of submitting your articles to different article directories.

Have Fun!

Are you already an expert in writing and submitting articles to article directories? Share your experience in the comments.

How much can I earn with Google Adsense?

2010-07-03T13:36:00.000+05:30

Well, before you question yourself how much you can earn with Google Adsense, ask yourself the following questions first:

How much do you want to make?
How hard do you want to work?
How much time to you spend working?

The answer to the above questions will form the answer to your question "How much can I earn from Adsense?"

There are so many factors which effect your earnings with google adsense.

The number of visits to your blog every day. It is a significant factor in determining your blog's earnings. The more the number of visits, more are the chances of you making making good money.
Your blog content is another factor in determining your blog's earnings. If your site is about anything popular (music, sex, whatever) you're bound to get a lot of banner clicks. These have a coefficient associated with them, called the CTR (click through ratio).
Basically, what it translates to is that if a large proportion of your site's visitors click the ads you'll be making more money. And the best way to do this is to have some popular content in your site, ensuring the links direct users towards popular items as well.
Placements of ads is another factor. Placing ads at the top portion of your website/blog makes them visible for your visitors without them having to scroll down. So, they would be interested in clicking on the ads.
Start building keyword-rich pages containing well researched, profitable keywords, and get lots of high quality links to your site.

As with any other business, sky is the limit. Work hard. Work smart. Have fun.

Be sure to check out my previous post on how to get success with Google Adsense.

How to succeed with Google Adsense?

2010-06-30T02:21:00.000+05:30

Google Adsense is a great way to make extra money. It's very easy to use. If you want to get success with Google Adsense, it's very important to follow the rules as Google is very serious about the integrity of this program. If you don't follow the rules, you could end up with your Google Adsense account being terminated.

Following are some important Dos and Don'ts for using Google Adsense.

DOs:

Content is the main part of your website or blog. Make sure that your website or blog content is unique and original. This will increase your visitors.
Read and understand the Terms and Conditions and Program Policies thoroughly before you begin using Adsense.
Explore everything you can about Google Adsense. Visit other blogs/websites that are using Adsense. Learn from their experiences and mistakes in using Adsense. Post a comment on their websites to know their experience.
Use right keywords for your articles.
Placing of google ads means much more to the website or blog owner. The ads must be in the top portion of your blog or website which makes them easily visible for your readers without them having to scroll down.
Learn how to optimize your site for the most enjoyable and profitable Google Adsense experience. Realize it does take some time and hard work. That's why it's so important that you write about something you care about. Hard work is even harder if you don't like what you're doing.
Change the ad layout and notice which layout works the best for you. There are many different layout options and there's no way you can know going in which one will perform the best.

DON'Ts:

Don't ever click on your own ads. Google Adsense makes it very clear this won't be tolerated.
Don't ask your friends and family to click on your ads.
Don't use automated click programs.
Don't use robots to clicks your ads.
Don't use illegal content on your webiste or blog.
Don't participate in the Google Adsense program strictly for the money. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It will take time and hard work to make a profit.
Don't worry if you don't understand everything the first day. Although the Google Adsense program is extremely user-friendly, it may take a little time to integrate all the facets of the program. Be patient and above all, have fun!

I hope these tips are helful for you to succeed with Google Adsense.
Share your experience with Google Adsense in comments.

10 Important Mistakes to Avoid When Submitting Photos to Stock Photo Sites

2010-06-26T11:19:00.000+05:30

A quick and easy way to make money with your photos is by submitting them to stock photo sites online. You can start earning money with the photos that are already in your hard drive; you don't even have to take new photos right away.

This article is the continuation of my previous articles "Make Extra Money for the Holidays: Turn Your Photos Into Cash", "More Tips for Turning Your Photos Into Cash" and "18 Reasons Digital Photography Makes a Great Home Career".

If you want a step-by-step guide to monetizing your digital photos through stock photo sites and other ways, check out Turn Your Photos Into Cash.

Meantime, you can get started right now. But do make sure you don't make these 10 mistakes when you submit photos in stock photo sites:

Submitting low-quality photos. Don't waste your time and energy. Nobody wants blurred, under-exposed and other types of low-quality photos.
Not doing keyword research. The right keyword list can make or break the profitability of your photos.
Submitting photos that you don't own. You can get into real big trouble for doing this.
Submitting photos of people without a "model waiver." Know when you need a model waiver and always get one when necessary.
Submitting photos of objects owned by other people without a "property waiver." This is another legal requirement you should be aware of to avoid future headaches.
Submitting photos that don't meet the stock photo site's standards. You may think your photo is perfect but each site has its own standards, including minimum size, etc. Double check before submitting.
Submitting photos that have unwanted elements. Some items are simply unacceptable in photos. Find out which ones they are and either edit them out or avoid them altogether.
Submitting photos to stock photo sites which require exclusive contracts. Don't submit to these sites.
Submitting photos of mundane objects. Why bother when demand is low and they're all over the web already?
Submitting over-edited photos. Over-editing can drastically reduce the quality of your photos, causing them to be rejected.

If you want more detailed guidance on submitting to stock photo sites, I recommend Turn Your Photos Into Cash. Aside from making money on stock photo sites, this fact-filled Ebook teaches a number of other ways to turn digital photography from a hobby to a home business - a profitable one at that.

Click here to find out more about Turn Your Photos Into Cash.

What will you do for $10?

2010-06-24T22:08:00.000+05:30

I found this cool website called Tenyt which is very intriguing.

So, what is Tenyt?
Tenyt is a freelance marketplace. Services offered by sellers on tenyt are referred to as twigs. Prices of twigs are fixed at a constant $10. Sellers can create twigs that they are willing to offer for $10 and list them on the marketplace, buyers can browse through the twigs listed by sellers and order twigs of their interest. A feature rich order message board has been designed to aid in communication between the seller and buyer. Any disputes with the seller can be filed at the dispute resolution center and the buyer will be refunded if the seller has not delivered as described.

How to sell on tenyt?

Start selling on tenyt by listing your first twig by telling "what will do for $10?".
Once you list the twig it would be available to the buyers.
Once a buyer orders your twig, you would be requested to accept or reject the order within 24 hours.
Once you accept the order the order is marked as in progress and a message board is opened to aid communication and sharing of files with the buyer.
Once the order is completed the buyer is given 24 hours to review the order and leave a feedback.
You are then requested to leave a feedback about the buyer.
Once you leave the feedback the order is marked as completed.
After a safety period of 14 days from the date of payment by buyer your account is credited with $9.
You can request a withdrawal to your PayPal account once your account balance is $40.

Is there anything else?
Yes, another cool thing is that you can refer new buyers to tenyt and earn 2% of every service the buyer orders for life.

A few example twigs:

I will make a web banner for you for $10
I will turn your lame resume into a masterpiece for $10
I will turn an image to a cartoon look-a-like for $10
I will design a vector style logo for $10
I will design logo for your company for $10
I will be your personal designer for 1 hour for $10
I will advertise your business for 1 month on one of my two viral youtube videos with a link and slogan for $10.

Overall tenyt is a great place for selling and buying small, interesting and creative services and a great place to have fun. Be a part of tenyt, start listing your twigs on tenyt today.