Sunday, April 29, 2007

FartPerPost.com The Razzies of the Sponsored Article Industry

I came across a site the other day called FartPerPost.com.  They offer a website where they're looking to gather categories for nominations for a notoriously evil award called a 'Farty.'  The idea is that there are a number of bloggers that are joining the ranks and starting to write sponsor articles to monetize their blogging efforts.  As these bloggers join this new world many of them go through a learning curve and some of the articles that they write up your rubbish.

In addition some of the advertisers that advertise to have bloggers write about them provide rubbish for topics to be covered.  Fart Per Post was apparently established to call out the rubbish and invite the sponsored article industry to have a good laugh at itself on occasion.  So if you come across a stupid sponsored article or stupid sponsored advertising topic submitted to far proposed and we can all enjoy a good laugh.  After all we all make mistakes on occasion, and sometimes we need a laugh those mistakes acknowledge them and move on.

No More Incumbents New Hampshire

I'd like to share with you a couple other projects I've been working on.  For these projects I've been collaborating with several different great writers.  We have a site called NoMoreIncumbents.org.  it is a political blogging site and we are building up many different blogs on the site.  We are hoping to attract writers for each of the states.

This would provide us with a little over 50 writers to cover the future presidential campaign in 2008.

We have several great blogs on this site covering the states of New Hampshire, New Jersey, Missouri and recently the New York.  Plus we have a blog entirely dedicated to covering the presidential campaign.  We have even considered expanding out of covering international politics around the world.  Political blogging pays very well especially during the height of the campaign season, we are establishing this blog now in preparation for the height of that season yet to come.

Monetizing the Public Domain

I would like to share with you a project that I've been working on for the last couple of months.  It's a new website called the History of the Book of Medicine.  This is basically a website set up with Word press and on the website I am reviewing and studying very old medical textbook that's now in the public domain.

Books are going to the public domain can be reprinted on the Internet.  Determining if a book is in the public domain is not an easy process, but once you figured it out there are many things that you can do.

  1. You can record the book is an audio book and offer it for download
  2. you can republish the book as an e-book
  3. you can republish the book online
  4. in my case I've opted for a bit of digital archaeology, and I'm reviewing a book like I would review a dinosaur bone that I dug up in the desert.

 

This last approach provides a number of interesting monetization capabilities.  First I get some very rich content from the book itself.  Plus I get a great deal more content for my own thoughts thinking about the book or analyzing the subject matter of the book.  The website is soon to go up to a page rank of three after its only been up for several weeks.  I expect it to hit page rank four and five soon after that and it's also picking up a good deal of traffic.  As this is a bit of a historical and archaeological work I also expected to pick up some decent education back links from .edu sites.

So if you happen to be in an auction don't just ignore that old dusty book, and don't buy just to make your bookshelf look fancier old fashion.  Consider the value of that information once it's digitized!

Earn Money from Offering White Paper Downloads

The LinkyLoveArmy is looking for new business bloggers to sign up to help them promote white papers.  Blogs that target business readers or businesses themselves can earn money from offering white papers is a free download option on their blogs.

They are excepting new business blogs of any page rank and any age and they can show you how to earn money from offering white papers on your website.  Did like to see live example of what this experience can feel like check out the White Papers at Softduit Partners.

This can be an excellent way for you to add another revenue component to your blog or website.  Did we mention that the average earnings amount for a downloaded White paper pays close to $50?    !!!  :)

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Performancing Pays you to Hit Front Page

Performancing announced this week that they will start to pay bloggers when there are blog submissions hit the front page on performancing.  Every time you land a blog article on the front page of performancing, you will receive $10, which is pretty good for pushing out great content to an excellent site.

Performancing is an excellent resource for pro-blogging tips and insights from people that it been involved in the blogging community for years.  There are many other great reasons to check out performance seemed as well, and now when you contribute back to the community you can share in the rewards financially.

Invitation to Join Performancing's Pro Blogger Community

In addition, when you write a performancing, you're essentially given your own blog.  You will also be a will to rotate in your AdSense code on your blog of Performancing and receive 70% return on the rotation there.  That's another good incentive to share great information with the community at Performancing.  The site is maintained with the software platform Drupal and blogs there do benefit significantly from Performancing's excellent page rank.  My blog at Performancing, Titled Brett Bumeter's blog, has a page rank of four, and you can benefit from the money as well as for the page rank if you contribute quality information to the community at Performancing.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

New Pay to Blog Site - LinkyLoveArmy

I came across a new site that is looking for beta testers for a different model in the get paid to blog genre called the LinkyLoveArmy.

They are preparing to run a beta test this week, but haven't given an indication of when they might go live.  SponsoredReviews that kicked off a few weeks back ran a sign up process for several weeks before they went live let's hope this one gets going a little faster. 

They hint at the ability to help bloggers build up their incoming links so that should be interesting.  That sounds like something that a lot of people would pay to do as opposed to 'get paid to do!'

Thursday, April 12, 2007

The Simple Steps of Setting up a WebSite

I would like to share with you the simple steps is setting up a website.

  1. Acquire a domain
  2. acquire hosting service
  3. if steps one and two are not performed together, point the domain at the hosting service
  4. upload your files to the hosting service

 

That's it!

It's not complex, it's downright easy.

Figuring out how to build the pages and what services to use our software programs can make things more complicated but even that's pretty easy.  If you utilize Word press to just create a blog is an example, you only need to add a couple extra steps.

  1. The files you uploaded in step four above, will include your Word press software files.
  2. You will need to login to your hosting service and configure a MySQL database(this is easy all you have to do is hit a button to create a database, give it a name, and then establish a user with a password for the user and point the user to the database -- that may sound slightly complex but really all you have to do is hit about four buttons and come up with a database name a username and a password, all of those names need to be under about eight characters usually)
  3. then you simply configure your Word press file with the database name, user ID and password and upload that single file again
  4. then go to your demesne and follow the four step were press install instructions and now your site will be live
  5. then log in the were press and do the custom setup and configuration steps in your home free!

Un-Parking Domains - Page Rank Asset Appreciation

In the past we've talked about the benefits of domain parking, today I'd like to talk about a follow-up topic.  It is likely that eventually you will come to a point where you want to stop parking the main.

This part asset of a demesne eventually we'll do you more good in some other capacity.  That's what becomes time to un-park it.

Un-parking a domain, depending on where you have it registered, may include redirecting the DNS, pointing it from the original registrar to whatever host you plan on holding the domain.

Now if you've had the domain part for a long time, you may come to find out that your password may have expired or got locked up or run into some other problem.  We recommend that if you are looking to un-park a domain, you should prepare three to four months in advance by testing your login information to see if it still works.

If it does not work you should contact the company that you originally registered with and starts go through the process of getting the password reset.

We have currently taken a new domain(CafeMicrosoft.com) out of parking, and we are in the initial stages of launching a new site with.  It doesn't take much to un-park a demesne, and I would highly recommend that as an alternative to domain parking you simply set up a blog on the domain. 

When you hold a blog on the domain, that blog can be read with several articles information and eventually that blog on the domain will attract a page rank higher than zero.  Typically a parked domain will decrease and page rank if it holds a page rank or it will never increase in page rank from zero and it has no page rank.

You might be older earn a little bit of spare change from park in a domain by running ads on the domain, however you are asset will never really appreciate and die you from the perspective of page rank.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Here's a Job for You - Wanted: Commander in Chief

If you have ever wanted to run the world's most powerful military and intelligence network and have asperations to one day become the dictator of the United States, check out this Job Offer at NoMoreIncumbents.org.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Hitting Up the Political Campaigns with Advertising Campaigns

Over the last couple weeks we have been engaged in several advertising campaigns to push our political campaigns.  Specifically we have launched a number of sponsored review campaigns at sponsoredreviews.com.  These sponsored reviews were targeted to help raise awareness and promote a site called NoMoreIncumbents.org.  Specifically we were targeting one of the blogs that NoMoreIncumbents.org.

Our campaign's goal was to get the word out about our writer recruitment efforts on this site.  In general the campaign was a success in several ways.  We increase the number of links coming into the site, we tripled the number of weekly readers that we are bringing into the site, and we've added two new writers.  The total cost of the campaign was just over $100 and therefore was very cost-efficient compared to the goals that we met.

Here's a quick rundown of the Blogs that our campaign sponsored. 

(Note some of these sponsored articles do not necessarily match up with our own goals and political perspectives, however despite the differences in opinion from an advertising perspective we still succeeded.  It's not necessary in this type of advertising for the articles or the reviews or the perspectives of the blog authors to voice the same views that we hold.  In fact differences of opinion can often lead to more success in advertising of this nature.)

  1. Liberal Common Sense
  2. Politik Ditto
  3. Bonnie Writes
  4. just jag!
  5. My View from the Center
  6. Plus 1
  7. Kerala Articles
  8. Shelley's Incoherent
  9. Snarke
  10. My Thoughts

 

It is been our experience that different campaigns when themselves to different sponsored review type services or payperpost type services.  This particular advertising campaign fit very well within the structure provided by sponsored reviews.com.  Other campaigns that we have run would not work well under this environment.  We do provide consulting services for advertisers or websites looking to sponsor programs in this of online blog reviews or articles to generate interest and buzz across the blogosphere.  There are dozens of firms and services that provide slightly different methodologies to achieve these goals and through our company, Softduit Partners we can help you navigate this rapidly growing new industry of Internet marketing.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Name Your Images for Google Search

Maybe you have optimize your website for search such that when someone does a Google search they can find the texture information they're looking for.  When they perform that search, Google tells the potential readers what your site is about what they can find there so that they will click on the link and come to your site.

Have you optimize your website images for Google image searches?

When you include those handy little images in your blog articles are on your website are you naming them in a way that Google can find those images into something useful with them?

Just like naming any other file on your website, you need to name your images with descriptive titles that are conducive to search.  Don't use_use the -- to separate multiple words.  Use good keywords in the name.  Right up alternate text is well for the imaging case the image doesn't show through or in case someone that searching with some sort of disability can still get information about what is in that image location.

All of these items can help you attract people to image searches.  They may only show up to look at the image, however they may stick around your site and read the context that goes with the image.

Putting the Buzz Package Together

I like to share a recent I would like to share a recent project that we've been working on it Softduit Partners.  We have a campaign going where we are helping a software designer get the word out about their products.  To do this we engage in a multi-level parking campaign.  The campaign is not complete yet it's still under way and still building and growing as I type this article right now.

I started by completing a seed review on a different site featuring a project management software tool that can be very effective for online marketing campaign managers.  The software is called Topicscape and it provides the ability to create 3d mindmaps which can be used to track all of the facets and details of a marketing campaign.

Here's one of the quick videos that we created to show the quick zoom functionality.

We then worked to identifyother well-established and capable bloggers to cover the primary reviews.  Here is one of those reviews by Utterly Geek of Topicscape.

Will share more details about this project as it develops.

How to Earn Money From Revver

Here's a quick little example of how I earn money by putting videos on revver.  The when you upload a video to rapper, their service as a simple advertisement to the end of your video.  When a person watches your video all the way to the end and they see the ad you get credit for that view of the ad.  You are then paid for the views of all the ads that are shown on your videos and this is tracked in your revver account.

Here's an example of a video that I uploaded.

Tip! Keep you videos short!

If you keep your videos short, people will be more likely to watch the entire video.  This means they will also be more likely to watch the ad at the end of the video.  Don't sacrifice content however for the ad.  If your video is a compelling because it's too short they are going to watch the ad and they probably won't watch your videos in the future.  What I'm trying to share with you here is that it's important to edit in this case and keep things refined in short but don't sacrifice the good stuff just so that people get dumped onto the advertisement.