Posts Tagged ‘make money online’

Increase Your Website Ad Revenue with the Google Heat Map

December 16th, 2009 No Comments

If you’re running a free website (one that doesn’t require a reader subscription), then the odds are pretty good that you’re probably depending on ad revenue to support your operating costs (and hopefully some form of profit). In addition to using effective SEO techniques to attract as many visitors to your website as possible, another element of increasing your website’s ad revenue is by getting your visitors “converted” into revenue.

How do you convert visitors? As I mentioned recently in the 4 A’s of Marketing - you convert them into profit by driving them to take action that’s profitable for both the reader, and for you. It’s profitable for the reader because you’ve chosen products and services to advertise that you know are high quality and valuable, and it’s profitable to you because those companies pay you based on referred sales.

website ad revenue

Google Adsense is one of the best ways for new bloggers to learn what ad placement techniques work on a website and which methods don’t work. On one of my blogs, for the longest time I couldn’t manage to generate any clickthroughs to my Google ads. On the one hand, I don’t like introducing large and obtrusive ads into my articles or on my website, but on the other hand I could tell that my visitors weren’t recognizing the value of those ads and taking advantage of those links.

After doing a little bit of research about website “heat maps,” I figured out what I was doing wrong, fixed it, and increased my ad revenue by over 600 percent. In this article I’ll quickly review what I learned so that you can put it to use on your own blog or website.

The Website Advertising Heat Map

As I mentioned, Google Adsense is one of the best learning tools for a new blogger that’s looking to get into earning decent revenue through advertising. Google is extremely helpful in that effort, because they actually provide a very valuable ad heat map on their Adsense help pages that shows you exactly where you should place ads on your website for the highest clickthrough percentages.


website ad revenue

As you can see from the heat map, according to Google that most effective areas for advertising on a website are first and foremost at the very top of your content area. Now, there’s a tradeoff here. Personally I feel that placing a huge Google ad at the top of your content is very tacky and a major turnoff - it doesn’t look very professional. On the other hand, I’ve seen plenty of websites that do it, and they retain their readership - so proceed carefully.

The areas of any blog that I recommend concentrating on (if your template design allows for it) is the menu bar on the left and the menu at the top. These aren’t in the reddish-orange area, but they are still in the hot spots that generate the most action from visitors. The website where I tested this heat map concept was TopSecretWriters. I decided to place a large Google ad at the top of the left menu bar.


website ad revenue

I did have to slide some of my favorite graphical content down below this ad, and it did involve tweaking some of the template code itself, but in the end it was a smart move because it transformed the almost non-existent ad revenue on TopSecretWriters into a very healthy stream of clickthroughs and profit.

The moral of the story is this - the Google Adsense heat map is accurate, and I would highly recommend taking the time to become familiar with it and then redesigning how you structure the ads on your blog or website so that you are taking advantage of those hot spots.

Posted in SEO & Writing Tags: , , , ,

Offering Live Support Chat For Clients and Friends

November 1st, 2009 1 Comment

First, a little bit about how I came up with the idea to offer online PC support on this blog. One of my favorite writing gigs is the work that I do over at MakeUseOf. The writing crew over there are some of the most talented and technically savvy folks anyone could ask to work with. One of the things that I love about MUO is that it pushes me to try to come up with interesting ways that you can “Make Use Of” Internet technologies in ways that most people don’t know about or even consider.
free online writing courses

One of the things I really want to do is provide my blog visitors with a direct line of communication with me, and in that spirit, last month I tested and installed the VZOchat service on my blog. This service is fantastic and it’s an excellent way to offer videoconferencing over the Internet. The one drawback I noticed is that in reality, most people who are sitting in front of their PC really don’t want anyone seeing them - so they shy away from video chatting. I believe this is probably why videoconferencing never really took off as a major online service.

Offering Easy to Use Online PC Support Services

On the other hand, everyone loves to text chat. The popularity of IM services like Skype, Yahoo Messenger and the many other instant messaging services proves that people love to text. One of my favorite ways to get tech support when I used to be an Ebay Powerseller was through Ebay’s Live Support chat service, when they offered it. So, in my latest article at MakeUseOf, I decided to alter my videoconferencing approach into a text chat approach. It didn’t take very long to find the best service out there to accomplish offering high-quality online PC support - LiveZilla absolutely rocks.

livezil2

The LiveZilla support software is really easy to set up - the Wizard does everything for you. It will FTP the files to your web server (assuming you have your FTP details), and once installed on each PC that you want to use to answer calls, you’re done. The last step is distributing your chat room links either through your blog, emails, Facebook - wherever. As you can see to the right, I’ve decided to use the LiveZilla service to offer online PC support sessions as well as SEO advice sessions at various intervals of payment.

Offering Your Expertise for Pay

Why charge for your LiveZilla online support service? Well, as a writer or blogger, the odds are pretty good that you’re very busy most of the time. If you’re not updating your blog, you’re fine-tuning your website theme or writing articles for other clients. The fact remains that there are people out there who could really use your advice and technical expertise. Do you want to help them? Sure. Do you have time when you could be devoting that time to writing another article that helps you earn more income? Of course. If you have to choose - which would you go for?  Time is money - but you can still offer your expertise to your visitors who really need help, and are willing to pay for it. Think about it - most people are stuck with several options. One, ask a family member who claims to “know computers,” but who ends up messing things up worse in the long run. Two, hire a guy down the street who’s going to charge $60 to $80 an hour. Or 3, someone far less for a quick 15 to 20 minute chat session where they can ask their technical question and get a straight and knowledgeable answer.

livezilla11

Now, you can offer your blog visitors an option where they can pay peanuts to chat with you for 10 minutes, get a quick answer to their technical question, and their done. You haven’t wasted any of your time, and you’re putting your experience and expertise to excellent use for your blog readers and website visitors. It’s simple, easy, and you can add it as one more stream to your many streams of income earned on the Internet - it’s win, win for everyone.

Posted in Writing for Income Tags: , ,

Articles, Articles Everywhere - The Life of an Online Writer

June 23rd, 2009 No Comments

You know, it’s one thing to maintain a forty hour a week job to begin with, and it’s certainly another thing to do freelance writing work as a full time job, but have you ever wondered what it’s like to do both?

journalist

The Life of a Workaholic - Must…Take….A Break…

This all started when I got involved with eBay in order to earn some extra cash. In my usual all-or-nothing approach, I ended up as an eBay PowerSeller in less than a year. I wrote about that a bit in one of this month’s articles at MakeUseOf. There’s plenty of money to be made on eBay, the only problem is that 75 percent of it involves doing work outside the home. You can forget about having a life on “shipping day,” a tortuous day where you spend 4 or 5 hours rapidly packing up oddly shaped items in cardboard and bubble wrap. The next day you arrive at the post office carrying a mountain of packages (as other customers eye you up and down with disgust for taking so much time), and then you pray to the United States Postal Service gods to *please* not break anything, because dealing with USPS insurance claims is like expecting your health insurance premiums to go down next year…it ain’t gonna happen.

The Life of a Workaholic - Must…Take….A Break…

This month, I decided to share a bit of the madness. Here are a few of the projects that I somehow managed to complete this month.

And something I’m very proud and happy to report, a few of the best interviews I’ve had the honor of doing so far.  Jim Harold of the Paranormal Podcast, an interview with popular science fiction novelist Kevin J. Anderson, and finally a very cool chat with Scott Swedorski - the VP of Product Development over at CoffeeCup (the creators of the famous free web design software).

All in all, it’s been a fun month. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade in my day job as an Engineer - but I gotta tell you, this writing thing is a total blast.

Posted in Life As a Writer Tags: , , ,

Writing on Helium.com Becomes Profitable…Sorta

April 24th, 2009 No Comments

For anyone who missed it, back in January I commented about Helium.com, remarking that, “Helium is not the place I would recommend going if you hope to earn the big bucks.” As you can see here, I’ve written a fair share of articles at Helium.com, but that was mostly at the beginning of my online writing career, when I didn’t really know any better and was just testing the waters.

Helium Decides to Step it Up a Notch

To my surprise, only a few weeks after I published that article, Helium.com decided to increase their revenue sharing approach. So, in all fairness, I must reassess my original take on Helium. Instead of earning a “paltry” income from investing your time on the site, you will now be earning a “very tiny” income - but only if you’re willing to invest a fair amount of time. Here’s how the new system currently works.

Helium is now willing to offer “up-front” payments for your articles, similar to Associated Content, but at a lower rate and dependent upon your “writing stars” and your “rating stars.” The current rates are as follows:

* 1 Writing Star – $0.50 per article published
* 2 Writing Star – $1.00 per article published
* 3 Writing Star – $1.50 per article published
* 4 Writing Star – $2.00 per article published
* 5 Writing Star – $2.50 per article published

The catch? You have to have “1 rating star.” If you don’t maintain at least a single rating star, you won’t earn those upfront payments. How hard is it to maintain a rating star? Read on.

Rating Articles on Helium is Like Watching Paint Dry

So, for a month or so, I tried to see what it would take to establish and maintain at least one rating star on Helium. At first the help page was very obscure about what, exactly, was required to establish a writing star. I once posted on the discussion boards at Helium.com that I’d rated quite a bit over a few days and hadn’t seen any change, and the next day a rating star magically appeared. Whether this was due to some sort of “processing time,” or just some admin deciding to manually “fix” some technical glitch, it’s impossible to know. A few weeks later, however, Helium.com finally added clarity to their help page.

According the Helium.com help pages, in order to have a single star, you must have a “consistently high rating quality” and have “completed from 10 to 99 rates in the last 30 days or the last 90 days.” A little more clarity is provided below this under a section about rating stars that states to earn rating stars a user must maintain a “75% score,” whatever that means, and complete at least 10 rates in 30 days.

So, for a month I visited Helium.com every day and rated from 4 to 5 articles. Mind you, this was during time when I had several writing projects due in under three weeks, and didn’t really have time to sit around comparing one horribly written article to another and judging between them. Not that all articles were poorly written, but unfortunately most were. In my quest to find additional revenue on the Internet, I was curious if the magical single rating star would finally net some decent profit. It didn’t.

I Gave Up After The First Month

After those first two weeks, I realized quickly that this entire setup will never work. Writers know that it takes time to craft good writing - but to spend countless hours on a website judging and rating published content simply takes up far too much additional time. While 10 rates in 30 days doesn’t sound like a lot, the truth is that the algorithm that Helium uses to calculate your rates isn’t that straightforward. They attribute a “score” to your rates using some mysterious calculation - somehow trying to guess the value of how you rated between two articles based on your timing and reading behaviors while on the rating page. Through some experimentation I found that the system is horribly flawed, and you can lose a rating star far too quickly.

In my humble opinion, when you have the skill, and spend the effort to craft an article that is well-written and enjoyed by readers, the site that is bestowed the honor of publishing that carefully written content should pay for it. Other sites often pay very little in the form of royalties, but at least they pay straight and fair for that content, without playing silly games such as this. In the end, the Helium.com rating algorithm is the very last hurdle that the creators of this intriguing site have to overcome before they’re able to progress anywhere near the level of traffic and popularity as a site like Associated Content and others.

The thing about Helium is that the feel and community of the site is enjoyable. I just wish I could afford to spend more time there. Maybe one day they’ll get it right. When they do, I’ll certainly be one of their biggest fans.

Posted in Writing for Income Tags: , , ,

Using Craigslist to Discover Writing Work

April 24th, 2009 No Comments

One of the best ways to start really ramping up your income from writing is to use Craigslist to find writing work.

How to Use Craigslist to Find Writing Work

imac,apple imac,imac computers,While writing for many of the Royalty-Payment websites will allow you to flex your writing muscles online, and possibly earn you a small monthly income from the articles that you publish, the only way to earn a significant work from home income much more quickly is to land one or two writing gigs.

Ideally, what you’re looking for is a short term, small job where you’ll need to produce from five to ten articles for a webmaster, or some similar job. You could always search Constant Content or Scriptlance for posted jobs - but when you do so, you have to keep in mind that you’ll be competing with thousands of other writers who are searching over the same listings that you are. That doesn’t mean that you can successful land some great jobs at those sites, just just means that you’ll need to lower your price in order to stay competitive.

However, when it comes to Craigslist - you aren’t only searching on one website, you’re searching job listings for every state in the entire country. Lately, Craigslist has started taking on a life of its own, and some people are even turning to Craigslist instead of Ebay in order to buy and sell goods. The fact that Craigslist is becoming so popular so quickly means that Craigslist is a golden opportunity for you to find exciting writing work before anyone else does. Read on to learn how.

Search Through All U.S. States for Writing Jobs

The main page of Craigslist can appear a little bit intimidating.

Not only are there states and cities, there are also other countries. However, since you work from home, and all of the jobs that you’re looking for can be done remotely - the more locations there are, the better for you! Click a State, and the typical State page will offer a search feature like the one shown here.

As you can see on this screen, I’ve entered a search for the term “writer” under the “jobs” category. The results are not overwhelming, but the good news is that there are results!

Now, there are likely to be a number of listings that fall outside of your range of expertise. That’s perfectly fine. However, you’ll also find a number of excellent opportunities where you are very likely to be successful. For example, when I clicked on the “Looking for Freelance Writers…” link, I discovered a news website looking for “qualified writers to contribute to our growing publication.” The pay is a respectable $15 to $30 per article. Now, keep in mind that some of these jobs may be local, but a large number of them are posted by webmasters seeking content - and that’s your forte.

Does searching through each individual State in the entire U.S. feel overwhelming? Well it should! That’s why I’m happy to present the Free Craigslist Reader from Motion Technologies. Thanks to Motion Tech, you can use this free software to search the “Jobs” or “Gigs” categories for all locations. I have to say - this is an unbelievable advantage and a huge time saver.

Check out this single search for “Writer” on all locations:

The only drawback with the search feature of this Reader application is that there is not much indication that the application is actively searching. However, as long as the search bar reads “Cancel Search” and not “Search,” then it’s still scouring all of the listings for jobs. By the time it’s done, you’ll have a list of hundreds of potential writing jobs from all across the country (or the world, if you like!)

In an upcoming post, I’ll go over the best approach to take when contacting a potential client regarding a job posting, a sample contact letter, and how to present yourself in a way that will virtually guarantee that you’ll land the writing gig!

Posted in Writing for Income Tags: , , , ,

Make Money Online With Freelance Writing

April 24th, 2009 1 Comment

After a few weeks of earning money by writing for websites like Associated Content, Helium, and Ehow, you’ll get a taste for what it’s like to actually make money online with freelance writing. If you want to work from home, it doesn’t have to involve get-rich-quick schemes or selling cosmetics and bath soaps to your friends and family. If you are a natural born writer, you really can earn a very respectable income by earning money online. Read on to learn how to work from home doing what you already love to do, through online writing jobs.

How to Make Money Online With Freelance Writing Jobs.

There are thousands of ways that you can make money online, earning a lot of income from various online writing jobs. Most blogs and work at home websites will tell you that you need to create your own website or blog and work at building enough traffic to generate ad revenue. In time, they say, ad revenues will generate steady streams of income. While this is partially true, for both your own blogs as well as for content websites like Associated Content, the truth is that those sites will produce steady income later. What you are looking for are ways to start earning good money by working from home right now.

Make More Money by Working on Writing Projects

You’ve probably scoured the Internet for freelance writing sites where you could work for buyers who list writing projects on those sites. Many of the websites are either so poorly created that it’s horrendous to navigate and even figure out how to bid on a project, or the bids on projects are so low that you feel like it’s useless to even try. I’m here to tell you that the bids are misleading. You can win writing projects at these websites, and you can earn significant income from them. The secret is to bid correctly, present yourself extremely professionally, and then perform above and beyond the call of duty. Below, I’ve reviewed the three websites where I earned the most income from online writing jobs. Each has pros and cons, but by using all three, you could be just as successful (or more!)

Constant Content - A Freelance Job Posting Site

It always amazes me, whenever I visit this website, how such an oddly designed site could produce so much income for writers. Constant Content is somewhat difficult to navigate if you don’t really understand how it works.

After you’ve signed up as an author on Constant-Content, to find what jobs are currently available for Freelance writers, you need to scroll down the left side and click on “Requested Content” under the Author Login section. On the requested content page, you’ll find a list of writing projects posted from buyers. These buyers will range from print magazine publishers to website designers. What they all have in common is that they are simply looking for quality articles written by good writers. On the requested content table, you’ll find the requested titles, the date of the request, and even what range the buyer is willing to pay for the completed article. The way the process on Constant Content works is this:

  • First, write the article according to the guidelines set by the buyer in the request
  • Make sure to assign a price within the range the buyer requested
  • Submit your article. You’ll need to wait a few days for Constant-Content to approve it
  • Once approved, go back to the buyer’s listing and suggest your article to the buyer
  • The buyer will pay you through Constant-Content

In upcoming blog entries, I’ll take you through an actual real-world step-by-step process of submitting articles to buyers on Constant-Content and getting paid for them. This page is an example of what your profile will look like, and any articles you write that don’t sell remain for sale so that other visitors on the web can purchase your articles. Keep in mind that Constant-Content takes a whopping 30% commission for all of your article sales through their website. It’s highway robbery, but without them, you’re article wouldn’t be seen by quite as many potential buyers.

Scriptlance - A Freelance Job Bidding Site

Scriptlance is the one freelance website where I finally discovered that it really is possible to earn a substantial income from writing. This is the king of all freelance sites. It’s focus is website design, but for an online writer, such a website is a goldmine of opportunity to write online content for website designers. When you first sign up with an account, you’ll have a profile page like this.

This profile page is where you’ll monitor the status of all of the projects that you bid on, as well as all of your active projects that you’re working on. Your current balance is displayed, and as you complete projects successfully, your rating will eventually rise - winning you more and better paying jobs. Clicking on the “View Projects” link under Member Login on the left switches to the page listing the latest project postings.

This list is where you’ll spend much of your time, monitoring the latest posts for projects that you could potentially accomplish. Remember to keep an open mind - website designers need content covering a very wide variety of topics. If you’re willing to write about anything, the opportunities that come up are endless. When you see a project you like, post a bid amount that’s competitive but reasonable.

Find freelance programmers at ScriptLance.com - Search worldwide

In an upcoming post, I’ll take you through the process of bidding on, and winning, Scriptlance bids by writing winning private message board messages that win over the buyers. The secret of success at Scriptlance is perseverance. Never give up, even when you lose bids, just keep bidding and eventually you’ll have more work than you know what to do with.

Miscellaneous Sources of Freelance Writing Jobs

Other sources for writing work can be located all over the Internet, if you know where to look. It’s best to avoid the websites that are obviously a sales pitch for membership at some freelance listing site. You don’t need to invest money to obtain good freelance jobs, you just need to be diligent about searching for opportunities and applying wherever any arise. Free classified listings are filled with job opportunities from all sorts of folks who need articles for different purposes. By searching these sites, you’ll discover a few additional sources for some excellent freelance writing opportunities.

  • Craigslist - Search jobs for “articles” to find writing opportunities from buyers across the world.
  • USFreeads - Search through the “employment” and “business opportunities” sections for listings.
  • Yahoo! Classifieds and Google Classifieds (Base) also list great opportunities in the job categories.
  • LiveSimon - Another popular online classified site listing occasional writing opportunities.

There are thousands of free classified listing sites across the Internet with unlimited ways to make money online with freelance writing - the only real limit for earning income from home is how much time you have available to write. Keep searching for those jobs, and make sure to bookmark this blog (or subscribe) for the latest tips and news about the newest online writing opportunities within the writer’s market.

Please use the comments section to share some of your own freelance writing stories and some of your own successes or failures!

Posted in Writing for Income Tags: , , , ,

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