Making Money with Affiliate Programs?

Do you want to make money on line? Thinking of signing up for an affiliate program? Maybe you want to sign up for several of them, or a lot. Everyone is making money, so why not you? Not so fast… Yes, it’s true, some people are making money on line with affiliate programs. Most people signing up for these programs aren’t making money though, and may even be exposing themselves to a very high risk of identity theft.

“Make Money On Line.” It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Just buy our product, sign up for our affiliate program, create a web site with our pre-built templates (a $500 value included absolutely free), and sit back and watch the money start rolling in. Who wouldn’t want to make money like this?

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. There are several problems with this “plan.” The first problem is that you’re spending money on a product you know absolutely nothing about (except for what you read in the ad copy). Second, you have no way of knowing how to generate traffic to your sales site, especially when your site is competing for page rank with the sites of the thousands of others (supposedly) selling this product successfully. Finally, you may be exposing personal financial information to a company you know little or nothing about.

I believe it is possible to make money on line, but only if you plan – not just for business, but also to protect yourself. Your fisrt step should be to obtain a Taxpayer ID number from the IRS. Obtaining a Taxpayer ID number will allow you to sign up for affiliate programs without disclosing your Social Security number. This is important to help prevent identity theft.

Themes

I think a lot of people make too big of a deal about themes. I read posts about how a blogger chose a new theme and how just Incredibly COOL (!!!!!) the new theme is going to make the blog. I disagree. Content is still king, and while the visual presentation can add to the enjoyment, it is content which makes a blog worth reading and coming back to again and again. Some of the “cool” themes I’ve seen actuallydetract from the info being presented, making them IMHO decidedly un-cool.

Basically, all a theme does is control the look of your blog, and (sometimes) makes it easy to add certain features, like ads, forms, lists, etc. So just pick a theme that looks good to you and lets you add the elements you want to your blog and be done with it… no need to make a big deal about it. Telling your readers how to set up a theme for a specific task is informative and useful. Telling them how cool your new theme is, is a waste of bandwidth.

Xiaohua

What’s so bad about $25 per hour?

I was reading the comment section of an MMO blog, and one of the people commenting was concerned. The blogger had written that he’d made $1500 on a blog flip, and the commenter figured this represented “only” $25 per hour (it turned out to be more like $70 per hour).

I think it’s great the blogger made $70 per hour instead of $25, but what would have been so wrong if he’d only made the lower figure? It’s almost like making “only” $25 is something to be looked down on. The really funny thing is the commenter was an admitted newbie. I wonder if he really thinks that $70 or more is the norm, and anything less is not worth pursuing. Isn’t $25 per hour pretty good, especially when you’re just getting started?

Think about it – if you work 20 hours per week for “only” $25 per hour, that’s $26,000 a year for a frickin’ PART TIME JOB. Doing something that is so much fun that many wouldn’t even consider it work. Likely TAX FREE. Why is that something to be looked down on?

Xiaohua

Lame Feedburner Counts

One of the first things I notice on a blog is the little RSS Feed subscription icon. On some blogs it is just a generic icon, while other blogs have a little Feedburner icon that displays the number of RSS subscribers the blog has – and this is where serious lameness can occur.

Think about it. If you have more than say, 500 or so subscribers, that’s pretty good, so you might as well show the world. On the other hand, if you only have a few, then publishing the number is just like shouting to the whole world “MY BLOG ISN’T VERY POPULAR!!!” It’s human nature for most people to want to associate with people and things that are popular, so why would you want to give people a reason to prefer associating with a different blog? This especially makes no sense if you’re trying to sell advertising space on your blog. Do you think potential advertisers are going to prefer your blog with 300 (or less) subscribers, or another blog in the same niche with 1500 subscribers?

The solution is so simple – just don’t advertise the number. Let it be your little secret. No one has to know except for you, and you don’t have to tell anyone unless a potential advertiser asks you (in which case you should answer truthfully). Until you build up a good number, just leave it left unsaid and unpublished.

Example of a GOOD blogging blog

I just found this site, Standout Blogger and have to say something about it. This blog gets just about everything right. It has a solid design, it loads fast, the blogger writes very well without grammar or spelling errors, and he doesn’t go on and on about how wonderful his ideas are. In fact, the only regrettable thing I found about this site was a post indicating that he is thinking about selling the blog. This would be a shame. In a niche that is overflowing with lame sites, Standout Blogger really does stand out as a diamond.

Hello world!

Welcome to My Blogging Journal. When a friend asked me to take a look at his personal finance site and comment on it, I checked out lots of other sites as well so I could compare his site with others. While I found a lot of really good sites, I also found a lot that frankly are pretty lame. The sad thing is, most of the lame sites seem to be run by people with a lot of enthusiasm for their chosen subject, but they all repeat the same mistakes that make their blogs lame.

I decided to start this site for two reasons. First, I wanted to post my observations on other blogs in the hope that people will stumble across this site and use the information to improve their own blogs. Second, as a personal challenge, I want to see how much traffic I can pull in a niche that is already extremely crowded – blogs about blogs and blogging. So without further adieu, enjoy the site.

Xiaohua