Making Cash On The Web

Sites With A PageRank of 10

2007-03-08T20:03:00Z

Google’s PageRank stat supposedly shows the relative importance of a site, based on a number of inscrutable factors but most prominently the number of links back to the site. The scale ranges from 1 to 10 and is a logarithmic function. So sites with a PageRank of ten are the most important ones on the ‘net. Who are they? Well, Google, for one. And Statcounter.com. Here are a few others:

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
http://www.w3.org/
http://www.macromedia.com
http://www.energy.gov
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
http://www.keio.ac.jp
http://www.nasa.gov
http://www.apple.com
http://www.google.com
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
http://www.ercim.org
http://www.lcs.mit.edu
http://www.nsf.gov
http://www.microsoft.com/
http://www.apache.org/
http://www.whitehouse.gov
http://www.real.com
http://www.ibm.com/
http://www.cisco.com/
http://www.statcounter.com
http://www.adobe.com/education/main.html

Blogging For Big Bucks

2006-09-02T21:31:00Z

CNN has an article on how boggers are now on the cusp of making big bucks for their efforts. For example, Michael Arrington of Techcrunch pulls in $60,000 in advertising revenues each MONTH!

Get to work folks. We all can get in on this one.

Ontok Highlighter

2006-09-02T20:01:00Z

Ontok Highlighter offers a new way to monetarize your website. You install a bit of javascript on your pages and the programs scans the text for keywords, turning them into active links. Ontok says that

the Ontok Highlighter only highlights words in your page that are either product-related or topically related to the page being highlighted. This results in ads so well-matched that your visitors will actually find them useful.

Building Your Forums

2006-09-02T20:00:00Z

There’s a real Catch-22 involved in starting up an internet forum: people won’t participate unless there are people participating.

So how do you get started? One way is to create a few dummy accounts, then log on and write a bunch of posts under different names.

Another suggestion is to lean on your friends and family to help you get started.

You also can offer prizes—offer one for the best post of the month; for the post that creates the most replies; or for a random post.

As a last ditch effort, you could use a service like Forumshock For what seems to me to be a very reasonable price, Forumshock promises that quality posts will be made to your forum.

Font Usability Study

2006-09-02T19:59:01Z

They seem like such little things, but fonts may have a big impact on your earnings. The right font can convey messages to your readers that can’t be conveyed with mere words or pictures.

But which one to use.

Fortunately, a study has been conducted on the usability of various fonts. The psychology department at Wichita State has determined that the most preferred fonts were Courier, Comic, Verdana, Georgia, and Times.

Promote Your Site With Business Cards

2006-09-02T19:59:00Z

If you don’t already have business cards for your site, you should get some immediately.

I use my business cards to promote the site in a variety of ways.

The first is the most obvious: I hand them out to friends, business associates, and people that I meet. Sometimes I hand over a couple and ask them to pass one on.

I also will take them with me in my wallet and stick them on any community bulletin boards that I come across. Quite often grocery stores, banks, libraries and other high traffic areas have bulletin boards for people to post notices on.

Since my principal site is about a hobby, I take a bunch with me when I go to a hobby show. I leave them lying on counters, tables, bathroom sinks, and anywhere else where a hobbyist is likely to be.

If you know the show’s organizers, ask if you can put your cards on the registration desk for people to pick up when they get all the rest of their convention goodies.

The best thing is that you can get started by getting business cars for free. A company called VistaPrint offers 250 free full color cards for you to get started. They’re great.

Get Started With Typepad

2006-09-02T19:58:00Z

I started my blogging career on TypePad. I knew almost nothing about web hosting and setting up a site, and yet I knew that I wanted more flexibility than any of the “free” blog sites offered.

After much research into various “paid” blog sites, I settled on TypePad. It simply offered the most flexibility and power. I used TypePad for a year and was very happy with the results. During that time, I established my audience as a blogger and it set the stage for further success.

So why am I not on TypePad any more? I outgrew it. I wanted to add all kinds of other software applications such as forums, web directories and so on. Fortunately, I was able to take all of the blog posts that I had made with me when I migrated to a different system.

Incorporate Your Websites

2006-09-02T19:57:00Z

I recently brought all of my websites together under a Limited Liability Corporation.

LLCs are a relatively recent form of business organization that combines the benefits of both a corporation and a partnership. In an LLC, the personal liability of the members is limited to what they invest, just like a corporation. On the other hand, the LLC has the tax liability of a partnership.

Another advantage of the LLC is that it is relatively easy to form and maintain. In most states, a single individual can form an LLC, but in cases of LLCs with multiple members, management can take any number of forms, as outlined in the Operating Agreement.

While forming an LLC is not as difficult or as tricky as forming a regular corporation, it still can betime consuming. Fortunately, there are a number of online services that can help you navigate the procedures.

One good online legal company is LegalZoom.

LegalZoom, founded by attorney Robert Shapiro, is the premier online legal document service center. LegalZoom provides quality legal documents and document services at a fraction of the cost of an attorney. LegalZoom even reviews documents before sent back to the purchaser. Consumers and small businesses benefit from the efficiency provided by LegalZoom, which is why LegalZoom has been recognized and applauded by Yahoo!, USAToday, Popular Science, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, and the N.Y. Times.

In addition to handling LLC filings, LegalZoom also can file Wills, Divorces, Incorporations, Trademarks, LLCs, Prenuptial Agreements, Living Trusts, and other legal documents. Basic fees start at just $29.00.

Help Finding A Good Domain Name

2006-09-02T19:55:01Z

DomainsBot has a great—and free tool—for helping you find great domain names. Use the “advanced search” options to find not only available domain names with your keyword, but also domain names with other, related keywords. I’ve found some terrific names using this tool.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool

2006-09-02T19:54:00Z

Google’s AdWords is the advertiser side of the AdSense equation.

Now, Google has made available a tool to help you analyze the keywords on your site from an advertiser’s point of view.

For publishers, there are a couple of uses.

First, you can have it scan your site to determine which keywords will trigger ads. This could help you to figure out why your site shows nothing but off-topic ads.

Second, you can also have the tool show the keyword popularity. This could let you know about the level of interest in the keywords.

And finally, you can show the estimated cost per click for those keywords. This should let you know what are the high value keywords related to your site and write more articles about, or using those keywords.

Million Pixel Ads

2006-09-02T19:54:00Z

This is one of the many things where I’m kicking myself and saying “Why Didn’t I Think Of That.” A college student put up a web page where he sold ads by the pixel. One million pixels available. And one millions dollars when it was filled.

See the article in the Wall Street Journal

Develop Backlinks By Offering Free Articles

2006-09-02T19:53:01Z

A good strategy for developing those all-important backlinks is to write informational articles and offer them to other websites, with the proviso that the reprint contain a link back to your site.

There are two ways to approach this. The first is to find sites that might be interested in your site and offer the article to them directly. Thi swoudl be a good strategy for approaching sites with a much higher PR rating than your own.

The other way is to offer submit your article to one of a growing list of “free articles” sites, such as EzineArticles and GoArticles. These sites archive thousands of articles, all of which are offered free as long as links back to their site and to yours are maintained.

The advantage of these sites is that you don’t have to go out and find the sites on your own. If a webmaster is looking for free material on a particular subject, he goes to these sites.

A list of free articles sites where you can submit your material is below:

1. http://www.goarticles.com
2. http://www.ezinearticles.com/
3. http://www.articlecity.com/
4. http://www.certificate.net/wwio/
5. http://www.amazines.com/
6. http://www.articledashboard.com/
7. http://www.article-directory.net/
8. http://www.submityourarticle.com/articles/
9. http://www.magportal.com/
10. http://www.isnare.com/
11. http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl/
12. http://www.article-hangout.com/
13. http://www.webarticles.com/
14. http://www.articlecube.com/
15. http://articles4content.com/
16. http://www.article-buzz.com/
17. http://www.free-articles-zone.com/
18. http://www.newarticlesonline.com/
19. http://www.articletogo.com/
20. http://www.articleworld.net/
21. http://www.impactarticles.com/
22. http://www.articlealley.com/
23. http://www.directorygold.com/
24. http://dir.salon.com/
25. http://www.articlefever.com/
26. http://www.content-articles.com/
27. http://www.softwaremarketingresource...directory.html
28. http://www.niche-article-directory.com/
29. http://www.jogena.com/articles/articleform.htm
30. http://news.collectors.org/
31. http://article-niche.com/
32. http://blogtelecast.com
33. http://superpublisher.com/
34. http://www.articlecentral.com
35. http://www.article-directory.net
36. http://www.article-emporium.com
37. http://www.ebooksnbytes.com
38. http://www.ideamarketers.com
39. http://www.internethomebusinessarticles.com
40. http://www.site-reference.com
41. http://www.stickysauce.com

From Blogs To Riches

2006-09-02T19:52:00Z

New York magazine has an article on how a select group of bloggers has managed to—almost accidentally—turn their hobby into riches.

Based on their advertising rate sheets, it’s entirely likely that A list bloggers, such as Gawker manage to generate $4,000 or more daily. Pete Rojas, of Weblogs, Inc, last year sold his bundle of sites—primarily Engadget—to AOL for $25 million.

Inspiring stuff, but the article also tosses in a few bummers—that there is definitely a pecking order in blogs, and that the top spots are going to be difficult, if not impossible, to crack.

But the author is missing an important point: that the key to being a successful blogger these days is to find a niche—and there are millions of niches out there.

All of my blogs serve niche markets—and all of them have high Google pageranks and get significant amounts of traffic. My traffic is not measured in the millions of page views, to be sure, but its enough that they make it more than worthwhile to continue writing. And the traffic on each of these continues to increase—none have yet hit a plateau.

The primary advice that I can give is the same that I give in countless posts throughout this blog: write about things that you know and love—no matter how small. If you love the topic, there are doubtless hundreds—if not thousands—who love the same thing.

You are not going to crack the top ten—or even the Top 100—writing about politics, or computers or gadgets. You can, however, dominate many smaller ponds which have yet to be investigated by bloggers.

Hide Your Email Address

2006-09-02T19:51:00Z

You want your email address to be available to legitimate users. But you also want to protect your email address from lowlife email havesters who want to flood you with illegitimate offers and products.

The best way to do this is to have a “contact” form on your site, wehre users fillin their message. The form can then send a secure message to your email address.

Barring this, there are other, simpler, methods of disguising your email.

Sarven Capadisli has written a nice post on his blog about various methods to protect your email address from spammers.

Test Your Site Speed

2006-09-02T19:50:00Z

In my first attempt to start a website, I chose a poor hosting service—one with overloaded capacity and faulty software. As a result, my site was VERY slow—sometimes taking as much as 18 Seconds! to load during peak hours.

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that, because during peak hours, I was working my day job, not monitoring my site. But then a friend tipped me off.

You really should check the load speed of your site at different times of the day, and on different days of the week. And check it on a regular basis. If your host is speedy today, adding a few more clients may slow his servers down.

One website that I found that was useful for testing speeds—and for comparing speeds with other sites—is I-Web Tool’s speed test.

I ran the speed test on my own site, and compared it to a couple of my competitors. I’m happy to report that mine is faster!

(Its a competitive guy thing).