Ways to Make Money Online

Ways to Make Money Online - its the traffic stupid

I've had limited success with making money online blogging. Made about $170 so far - a real pittance. Time is the problem - making money online is not quick and certainly isn't easy, but I'm convinced with time and effort it's possible. Of the ways to make money online, blogging is simple but can be time consuming.

Seems to me the thing to solely concentrate on above all else is traffic. This means two main things:

1) Choosing a topic that people want to read about and are searching for. I can't believe I chose football but didn't think about what people where searching for

2) Use keywords. You can actually get your site indexed and attract traffic from Google within a week, but you must, must use keywords and do keyword research. Also don't even think of using a popular keyword, you've got no chance! Look for longer groups of keywords on your topic eg latest football transfers and rumours as opposed to football news. I've consistently got google top 10 by using longer groups of kew words eg Google 'EPL Transfer' & my site is at 4th position.

My problem is I wrote a load of posts and didnt SEO any of them!! Doh!!! Now I SEO all my posts and was getting on average 300-400 hits a day without even posting! (Its dropped off a bit lately as I changed templates and stuffed something up!

Of all the ways to make money online I think blogging, or running a website is the easiest and cheapest way. However it's all about the traffic and it takes time and effort. Personally I would ignore most of the crap you see on the internet about ways to make money online. I've not yet found anything which ultimately isn't bull. Good luck!!

Make Money Online Through Social Networking sites?

Make money online using Social Network sites..Err..No!

I often see websites telling you to go through the process of submitting your site to Digg, Stumbleupon, delicious, reddit etc as a way of gaining traffic. They often abound with stories of getting on the front page if Digg and generating tons of easy traffic, thus leading to your dream of making money online.

The age old saying applies as ever - if it seems to be too good to be true, then it is! Getting on the front page of Digg is virtually impossible. As for Stumbleupon, you may well be able to generate some traffic, but it will take an inordinate amount of time and certainly won't lead to achieving the making money online dream.

Well nothing comes without hard work I hear you say and thats totally true when it comes to making money online! Right, but why spend a massive amount of time on just one traffic generating tactic - you'd be as well spending your time writing quality content and let that get picked up by natural google traffic. Throw in some images and I bet you'd be well ahead on traffic compared to spending hours on end trying to generate traffic from Stumbleupon and Digg.

By all means submit to Digg, Squidoo etc but don't spend hours on it, thinking it's an easy way to traffic and online money making. It'll give you some backlinks, which is always good for SEO. Better tactic is to concentrate on your blog and when its built up and generating traffic in it's own right, has a known brand with a number of loyal readers, then use the social networking sites as a compliment to further consolidate your traffic.

It's damn hard work making money online, and trying to see past the scams is half the battle!

Traffic from Google Images

Theres great traffic to be had from Google Images - but watch out!

Google images is a great source of traffic, and there's no such thing as bad traffic, especially when your traffic is only in double figures.

My first blog used lots of Football/ Soccer images from the English Premier League. I obtained them via Creative Commons, but inadvertently breached copyright. However it demonstrated to me how you can get quick and easy traffic via Google Images.

Essentially you add an image to your blog, either via the form of a link, or simply upload a file, add descriptions in the 'alt' tag and your away. Also best to add the code 'title="descriptor" as well within the HTML. I am told these two things will help optimise things for the search engine indexes and the Goole Image searches etc.

It worked well for me, and I got my blog upto 900 hits per day until the English Premier League brought down the axe for my inadvertent copyright breach! You can see my original blog here

If you can avoid the copyright issues, Google Images is a great way of generating traffic! Good luck!

Blogburst a traffic damp squib!

Blogburst a damp squib of traffic!

Blogburst may well be a great traffic generator but I didn't find that. Here's my experience!

I come across Blogburst in my efforts to find ways to expose my blog. You sign up then have to wait three months to get your blog activated. They do this to get rid of the scammers and people who abandon blogs. Millions of blogs get abandoned after three months so this cuts the wheat from the chaff!

The Blogburst model is essentially this. You sign up, they add your blog to their database and publishers browse your posts. They then add your material to their site, and display this link on various other pages in thier site under the blog burst banner. How does it generate traffic for you? Well the idea is people read the article they have put on their site and click on the not to well highlighted link to your blog.

Seems to me the Blogburst model is based on generating free material for the publishers, which earns them advertising revenue, and generates bugger all traffic for the bloggers. That or my blog is total crap so no one clicked through.

You be the judge. Here's one of my articles that got picked up by Reuters via Blogburst. Its here

Blogburst can be found here if you want have a read and sign-up. Blogburst

Good luck!

Making Money online - a setback!

Making money online - a Premier League setback!

My blog Football Focus Online has suffered a major traffic setback! After months of posting and slowly building the site and traffic I recieved a nasty email from Google saying I had three days to remove images from my site or it would be removed!

It turns out the images I got via a Creative Commons Search were actually a breach of the English Premier League copyright! I got a cease and desist notice (or something) from a company call datalect, acting on behalf of the Premier League.

It really is annoying - my traffic has gone from 800-900 a day down to 50! Monthly my traffic had been doubling every month and was set to pass the March figure of 8,000 in the first two weeks of April.

I will take this up with Google as I used Creative Commons images for the very purpose of not breaching copyright. Not it turns out I did, and need a very expensive license to show the images!

Well no-one said making money online was easy! I will just have to find another way at this game or invest in the license!

Generating Blog Traffic Through Posting in Forums

Generating traffic from posting in Forums works - but not much!

A ritual for bloggers, and spouted all over the internet as a traffic generation gem is that of posting in forums and leaving links back to your site.

I've tried this and it works - to a point. For instance I posted two replies in a Liverpool Football forum recently and they generated 74 hits. Not bad for ten minutes work. See it here

Overall though forum traffic works, but it doesn't generate the massive traffic we are all seeking. That really comes from a combination of things, of which forum posting is one. However if you are like me, and are time poor, I suggest targetting your efforts elsewhere. Where's that you ask? - I don't know, I'm still experimenting and trying new things!

I started about four months ago and have got my blog upto 8k a month - to make any sort of money, you really need that a day, but I'll keep trying!

MakingMoneyOnline - How?

How to Make Money Online - it's easy & quick (so they say!)

Welcome to my blog. It's my tales on how to make money online, except with a difference. I have yet to succeed! I've made a bit of cash but not much! This blog will tell you what I've learnt along the way and keep you posted on how I'm going.

Hopefully you can learn what works, what doesn't and what to avoid! Making money online is very hard - decent money anyway! I hope you enjoy the blog and please send me comments etc!