Furthering My Pursuit To Make Online Income

Considering the little time I've had to devote toward today's online income earning efforts, I've actually accomplished quite a bit. I posted two articles to eHow on Linux virtual machine configurations, and I wrote a 600 word EZine article on using virtualization to create a virus-free web browsing experience (I know you aren't interested in the subject - I'm just trying to make this text relevant to the link I just placed). Although it will likely take the Ezine post a couple weeks to get published, I linked the virtual machine article to the eHow guides with some wholesome anchor text - hopefully, in a couple weeks, I'll see a little spike in eHow's already potent Google juice.

I'm also currently adding to this blog for your viewing pleasure, and when I finish this post, I plan on working on my niche site. Speaking of that damn project, I'd like to briefly discuss my current strategy for creating content for the niche site. I've already mentioned that I'm using keyword optimization to focus on several niche topics in hopes of maxing my initial earning potential. Therefore, I've selected a few relevant topics that cater to my low competition, high search volume, and high CPC keywords, and have been tying them altogether.

I've been creating content for the site from the inside-out, essentially focusing on writing the more obscure articles first, and tackling the broader subjects last. So, hypothetically, if I were creating an additional site on how to make online income (so much for a niche...), I'd begin first by writing a batch of articles on topics like "addressing duplicate content issues in Google indexing", eventually broadening my articles to discuss more general subjects like offering basic Adsense tips. Using this method, I not only force myself to do the bulk of my research early on, but when it comes time to write on the broader topics, I can create logically placed internal links without much additional effort. As I'm learning more and more, external links are great, but you're not practicing good SEO without the use of internal links.

One last thing before I move on:

I want to give a quick shout out to a loyal reader, Crystal. Without any bribing or begging on my part, she gave a much appreciated holler to Cash Money Retards by posting a very flattering entry on her blog. On 'The Best 50 Years', Crystal manages to make light of a subject that most of us fear - getting old. Now, being a strapping young buck like myself, I can't quite yet cash in on her well-written aging advice, but my infant daughter is pushing me a little closer every day. We may not be writing on the same subject matter, but it's all about networking and learning from each other. Good lookin' out, Crystal!

Good Night Never Never Land!

Productivity Resolution: Kick My Adsense Addiction

Hi, my name is Dave Lopan, and I have an Adsense addiction. Since I started this blessed online cash campaign nearly three weeks ago, I've caught myself checking my Adsense "earnings" every five minutes...it's a nasty habit. It would be one thing if every time I viewed my account there was a bigger number, but it's the same depressing triple-ot digits almost every time (although I made $2.32 yesterday!). I'm like a crackhead for Adsense...I got these cheeseburgers, man...

This evening, I was reading RoadWarrior's recent post, a helpful Adsense Tutorial. A friendly commenter, Dave Starr, left some good advice. What he said, I couldn't say better myself, so I'm just going to quote him - "If you are reading these words over your morning coffee, as I am, click away on a new browser tab, go to your blog and Do Something before you read another blog, check your AdSesne stats, balance your checkbook or check the sports scores. Trust me, it’s the million dollar secret that doesn’t cost a dime."

Brilliant Dave! That's my new resolution. From now on, every time I get the urge to beg Google for another Adsense rock, I'm gonna do something productive to help my online earning efforts. Whether it be make a new post, write a new article, or build a backlink...I have a lot of work to do, and I can't waste my time staring at $0.00 all damn day.

Sorry for the short post - I also have this full-time job/husband/father gig on the side - I have to give it the occasional contribution. Sweet dreams!

Week Two of MMO Efforts

I guess technically it's been more like two weeks and some change since I started this blog, but whatever...here are the stats.

Adsense

Here are the MMO (make money online) Adsense stats.I've made a total of $1.96 from ad revenue on this blog. Considering my traffic, that puts me at the average CTR, so I'm cool with those numbers for the moment. I mentioned back in a previous post that I would research and find out if I can post my earnings on this blog. The answer is yes, I can, but it's a TOS violation if I post specifics regarding my eCPM (effective cost-per-thousand impressions) and my CTR (click-thru rate). You may not care, but it was worrying me - I'd hate for Google to strip me of this sweet dime-a-day operation I've have.

eHow

I'm still stuck at $.49, but in fairness to eHow, I've only posted two articles. In my previous post, eHow vs Squidoo How-tos, I mentioned that I would be monitoring the traffic and revenue, and comparing the two. I had the same article on Squidoo for three months and received 54 views and $0. It's been on eHow for eight days, and has already reached 60 views. Of course, it hasn't made any money on eHow either. I'll keep you updated down the road.

The other article I posted to eHow this month was one written by my wife on music therapy. I mentioned that a couple days later, she wrote a more comprehensive article on the same subject, which I posted to EZine, linking back to the eHow article. Unfortunately, EZine has been behind on their reviewing process this month, so nearly two weeks later, it's only half way through the review process.

So in regards to eHow, I'm still looking at $.49. That leaves me with a total of $2.45 from my monthly MMO efforts. That's only 10% of my first month goal...the month isn't over though.

Blog Traffic

I've had 141 unique visitors to the blog so far this month, with an average of two page views, and three minutes and 45 seconds on the site. I've received the majority of my traffic from Blogger referrals, Digital Point forums (link in my signature), and Facebook. The good news is, my search engine traffic has grown from 0% to 5%. I'm finally indexed! Granted some of the queries have been a little off-topic; "make money off a dumbass" and "ways to make money if you're retarded", but I've also received more relevant search results like, "online cash" and "how does facebook suggest a friend". I know these stats are weak, but they're moving in the right direction...I can work with this.

I regret to inform you that over the next few weeks, maybe even months, I won't be posting quite as often. Don't worry though - it's for a noble cause. As I mentioned in a previous post, Make Money Online by Optimizing Keywords, I'm currently working on another site addressing a particular niche topic. I've written a few articles for it already, but I plan on writing many more. In addition, I'm going to prepare a lengthy guide/experiment for this blog to help increase traffic and sharpen my SEO strategy. Considering the combined effort the aforementioned projects will require, I won't have enough time to be posting my usual jibberish to this blog. Please accept my apologies. I hope you still love me.

Even More Link Building and SEO Resources!

I was at a party over the weekend, and I serendipitously ran into an old buddy from high school. Cool story, right? Well, it gets better. I hadn't talked to the guy in years, but as it turns out, he has turned earning online revenue into a full time job. That mother is actually living my dream - that, or he's found a way to live comfortably off of $.10 a day - either way, it's pretty amazing.

Here's a tip, folks. If you see me at a party, and you have a cool job, stay the hell away from me. I'll bother you all night with every question I can think of. I, of course, didn't spare my old buddy any special treatment. Being a total d-bag, I don't regret it either - he gave me some terrific advice.

I spent a bit of time bitchin' about how I've been blogging for two whole weeks, and I still haven't seen my first million. He eventually put things into perspective for me with a rather profound comparison. He said, and I quote, "Look Dave, I'm going to put you in the right perspective with a rather profound comparison. It took me six months of busting my ass to start seeing any earnings, but once I did, it started getting easier. Look at restaurant owners, mom n' pops, and any brick and mortar business ever...not only do they have to sink thousands of dollars into a laundry list of start up costs, but they don't start seeing any profit for years. In our business, Dave, all guys like you and me need is time, patience, and determination. Dave, you've got the look of a winner and the eye of the tiger, and I know you're gonna make all of your wildest dreams come true. San Dimas high school football rules!!!".

That's what he said - verbatim. All joking aside (everyone knows it's Nib High football that rules), I needed to hear that. It's really nice to actually know someone who's making it happen. Before that fateful night, last Friday, I was beginning to think it was just a pipe dream. Well folks, my dreams are slowly getting wetter (from the pipes...nothing seminal).

If you read the title of this post, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with link building and SEO resources. Well, through a series of email correspondence over the past few days, my buddy ole pal has been kind enough to fix me up with some quality reading material, and I want to share it with you:

101 Ways to Build Link Popularity: This is one of those easy-to-read 101 lists where you've heard of a lot of the info, but some of it's new - makes great bathroom material, but this old notebook burns my naked lap. That said, it's very well broken down and categorized into sections covering several link building strategies; syndication, PPCs, press releases, and using communities like Google Groups, forums, and Yahoo Answers to name a few. Not to mention, the stuff that I said I'd heard before, I needed to hear again. Simply being aware of solid link building strategies means nothing if I'm not putting them into action. It's a great quick reference style guide for anyone who needs to improve their link building skills (everyone).

12 Different Types of Links and How To Get Them: If you've already read the 101 list, you'll see a lot of familiar discussions in this article. However, it goes into further detail on how to gain inbound links from places like authority sites, .gov and .edu sites, local media, and directories. Perhaps the most interesting feature of this article is that the author suggests ratios of how much of your inbound traffic should be a product of each link type. For instance, he recommends not exceeding 10% of your backlinks from directories. Definitely worth a look.

How To Write 1000 Pages of Content: Yep, 1000 pages. So far, I've posted 15 to this blog...just a few more. Randy, the author doesn't come out and say that you need to have 1000 pages of content to be successful, but he does explain the significance of having a plethora of rich material. He also takes a lot of time to break down how one might actually generate 1000 pages of legitimate, unique content, and he does it in a way that makes it seem possible. One more thing I'll note about Randy is that he was gracious enough to reply to one of my comments with a direct email. You could sell shoes at Nordstrom with that service - you're in the wrong business, Randy!

Take 15 minutes and read all three of these suckers, and I guarantee you'll be using them as a reference to help you make your online money making dreams a reality. I know I will...I know I will

Free Social Bookmarking Software and Directory Submissions

Sorry folks - this is gonna be a short one, as I'm totally zonked, and I still have to write a Toastmasters speech for tomorrow. I just wanted to inform you of two link building strategies I just employed this evening to bring a little more traffic to this here blog.


Free Social Bookmarking Tool

About two minutes ago, I wrapped up my final social bookmarking submission - 1 of the 20 that I just just banged out in 10 minutes. How did I submit my site to that many social bookmarking sites in less than 10 minutes? Why with the help of my dear friends over at SocialMarker. The folks over at SocialMarker provide a nice piece of free social bookmarking software that runs right in your Firefox browser.

Some people frown on using a tool like SocialMarker, as it may encourage spamming. Frankly, I don't see the argument with this tool in particular. I still have to manually create an account for every site on my list, I have to fill in most of the submission fields, and, of course, captcha verification is always required. I see it more as a guide - I just check the "DoFollow" box (I'm only concerned with dofollow at the moment, as including all the nofollows would require new account verification to 25 additional sites), and I'm off, submitting a fully keyword optimized title, description, and link to 20 different search engine-friendly (SEF) bookmark directories.

SEO Friendly Directory Submission

Additionally, I submitted this blog to dozens of high PR ranked, seo-friendly site directories by cruising down the list at DirectoryRoll.com. Submissions can often take months to get approved (or denied), so I figure I might as well get cookin' now. Though being linked to dozens of site directories won't necessarily boost you to top of the SERPS, most of them are totally free, the submission process is relatively painless, and when you're hurting for traffic, every little bit helps. Just a couple quick things to consider during directory submission:

• Almost every site directory on the web offers a pro version, where you pay to speed up the approval process, and get more prominent positioning. The general consensus with my friends at Digital Point is that although being featured in a well-established directory (like Yahoo or DMOZ) once gave your site super clout in the SERPs, the SEO juice is no longer as potent - spend your money at your own risk.

• Many site directories require reciprocity, where in order to be featured in their listings, you must post a link on your site to theirs. Although I'm not against link exchanges, there are literally thousands of site directories on the Internet, and linking to all of them can start to cause a leak in your SEO rapport. Most of the directories featured on DirectoryRoll don't require reciprocal linking.

• Lastly, here's you chance to promote your site for free. As nominal as the results may be, you might as well take advantage and do it right. Submit your URL to the category that most accurately fits your site's content. Not only will you increase your chances of getting the listing approved, but visitors who found your site from a directory just might stay for a while.

Keep bangin!

Make Money Online With Keyword Optimization

If you just read my recent earnings report, you probably feel bad for me - don't - $1.92 can score me 100 acres of rich farming land...if I could just fix this damn flux capacitor. 1.21 Gigawatts!

Ok, that was fun. Now let's get Back to The Business. No, but seriously, I have to tell you about the future plans for this site.

Yeh...I'm done.

Those of you who have been following my posts from the beginning (thanks by the way) know that for some reason, I have some sick love affair with eHow. Well, I think that all that trouble they've been having with their site for the past two weeks is a sign from above. The pay-per-article model that fuels eHow still intrigues me, and I plan on making further contributions, but I'm no longer convinced that it has to be a staple feature in my online earnings efforts. From now on, I plan on making eHow a source of supplemental income to my supplemental income.

As you know, I've been doing a lot of reading on SEO practices lately. I've also been consistently bringing down the intelligence level on the Digital Point message boards for the past week with my Noob Saibot questions. I think, however, that I've finally nailed down some core "blogging for money" principals. By doing so, I've not only decided on the niche market that I'll be blogging on for the next few months, but I've also realized that as I currently post to this blog on "making money online", I'm drowning in a pair of concrete clown shoes. Let me show you what I mean.

Throughout the remaining course of this post, I'll show you how I arrived at my new niche topic (I'll reveal it when I go live - hopefully by next month), and I'll explain using this blog's operating keyword, "make money online" as an example.

The following is an interpretation of my recent research - I'm not yet an expert, so please don't make this your only source for establishing an SEO strategy.

In order to really dominate the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) with your blog, you need to choose a keyword that meets a balance between high search volume and low competition, and once you find it, you need to weave it into the content of your site. Of course, if generating income is a priority, you'll need to find a keyword with a high CPC (cost per click) to yield higher revenue.

It's more or less accepted that having your keyword or phrase included in your URL (makemoneyonline.com) is very heavily weighted in the eyes of search engines like Google. If you can't make that happen, you at least have to work it into your page titles. For example, your posts may be titled, How To Make Money Online, Make Money Online While You Sleep, or Name Your Blog 'Cash Money Retards' If You Don't Want To Make Money Online. Finally, in your content, make sure that you mention the exact keyword or phrase several times, but without going overboard. Search engines tend to penalize keyword density surpassing 5-7%.

So how did I find the magical keyword that I've chosen to write on? I've struggled a bit here, but I think I've come pretty close to figuring out the basics:

First, I thought of a subject that interests me, but lacks the mainstream popularity of something like, "make money online" (smooth). After writing down a few subject ideas, I pay Mr. Google Adwords Keyword Tool a visit to figure out how to tastefully exploit the niche, while putting a little money in my pocket. I enter my subject of choice into "Descriptive words or phrases" field and hit the "Get keyword ideas" button.

In one or two seconds, I'm looking at a massive spreadsheet-style data report. Something like this:














All of this data is valuable in its own right, but for my immediate purposes, I'm gonna clean it up a little. First, under the "Match Type" drop-down menu, I'm going to select "Exact". Then, in "Show Columns to Display", I'm going to add "Show Estimated Avg. CPC". Finally, I'm going to sort by CPC from highest to lowest by clicking the CPC column title twice. Now let's take a look:
















Because I'm planning on incorporating Adsense ads into my blog, I want the keywords that are going to payout the fattest. Let's look at the top of the list - we have, the keyword phrase "marketing make money online" coming in at $5.06/click. I mentioned how much Google keeps from adsense clicks in a previous post - and 78.5% of $5.06 is a nice chunk of change! When you look over in the "Local Search Volume" column, however, you find that only 480 people went searching for that phrase last month. If I conned all 480 suckers to hit my site, that'd be super, but realistically, I should probably choose a phrase that more people are searching for.

Oh golly, why there's one! The phrase "make money online" pulled in 135,000 Google searches in the US last month...when I started this blog a week and a half ago, that's where I stopped... Let's go ahead and find out why I have a ton of work to do if I want to beat out the 'Cash Money Retards' competition.

I'm going to pull up a plain old Google.com page and do a search. In the search field, I'm going to type in "make money online" and hit enter. Geez - 17.1 million results. Now I want to see who the real competition is, so I'll search 'intitle:"makemoneyonline"'...cheese and crackers - 7.57 million results!

In Google, the "intitle" operator returns all indexed pages that include the search phrase in the title. Remember when I said that anyone who knows what they're doing includes their keyword in the title? Using the intitle operator helps isolate your true competition. In this case, I have a little bit.





Let's just pretend for a second that I had less than 2000 results, which according to my friends on Digital Point, may give me a fighting chance without requiring too much blood, sweat, and tears. Even with a low results count, we aren't out of the woods yet.

A huge red flag when trying to choose a profitable keyword with this method is seeing .gov or .edu sites crowned at the top of the SERP. Google, education, and government sites are all in bed together. I've been told to abandon ship if I see these suckers occupying the top spots.

Another red flag is if the sites at the top are considered authoritative (think IMDB). If you're unsure about their power, let me make a suggestion. Install an SEO reporting tool like the SEOTools Firefox extension, and examine the competition directly. Check out the screen shot below and pay extra special attention to the Google PR (Page Ranking - between 0 and 10) and the number of external links pointing to the site (often a direct result of the Google PR).





















Hmmm, 1,134 backlinks and a Google Page Ranking of 5. Again, I have some work to do to get this blog to the top of the SERP with a keyword like "make money online".

There's still hope for me though. The niche blog that I plan to start as soon as tomorrow focuses on a keyword that receives 5,000 monthly searches, a CPC of $5.50, returns only 580 "intitle" search results, of which the top spot has a Google PR of 0 and just 23 backlinks (which I think I can duplicate or better with enough effort).

This keyword, which again, I plan to reveal once I've completed a decent foundation of keyword-rich articles, should take me one step closer to successfully blogging for money (I hope anyway).

Online Earnings Status Update: Week 1.5

Since the Sept 3, when I started this blog, I've banked a cool $1.43 from Google Adsense. Go ahead and laugh it up, but my revenue last Wednesday was at $.07 - that's a 2042% revenue increase. I keep up this pace, and I'll have $600 million by Fall.

Ehow is still stuck at $.49, though I'm not sure if that's accurate due to the payment reporting problems that their system has been plagued with all week. Those are still my only two streams of revenue, putting me at a total of a nice, plump $1.92.

As of yesterday, 88% of my 66 unique visitors have come from referral sites:

• 17 from Facebook (Mr. Laserwood is at 250 friends)
• 14 from eHow (combination of my forum signature and my profile page)
• 10 from Digital Point forums
• 11 from comments that I made on four different blog postings (relevant - I wasn't spamming)
• 3 from Twitter (360 followers though I actually know maybe two of them)
• The rest are just miscellaneous details

I still haven't received any hits from search engine traffic, though I attribute that partly to my recent domain purchase - the change hasn't been indexed yet, and without being indexed, those stuck up search engines won't give me any play. I'm confident Google will find me again in the near future (I submitted my new URL just the other day). Oh, and just in case you didn't know, you can find out if your site is indexed by searching for "site:http://yoursitenamehere.com" in Google.

EHow vs Squidoo How Tos

A while back, I created a Squidoo lens (lens is the Squidoo equivalent to a web page or a blog posting), outlining how to buy proper disaster preparedness evacuation supplies, and published it under the "how-to" classification. It was very detailed and informative, coming in at just under 3300 words (sans the fluff), and was targeted toward what I believe to be a niche market.

I left it up for nearly three months, and it yielded 54 views and $0 revenue. Before putting it together, I read through a series of Squidoo tips and FAQs on how to build a good lens, drive traffic, and increase Squidoo earnings. I also spent a solid five or six hours researching and writing the freakin' thing, so I was pretty pissed when my efforts didn't yield a single penny.

I've already given you my shpeel on eHow, but just to reiterate, it's one of the few online revenue generating vehicles that has given me near-instant results (which is why I'm hot right now that they still haven't fixed their image uploading issue). This evening, when I came home from work, I decided to tear down my disaster preparedness article from Squidoo, and post it to eHow under How to Create Your Disaster Preparedness Evacuation Kit.

The sucker is far longer than most eHow articles, which may count against me, but at this point, I don't have anything to lose. I'll be sure to let you know how the results compare.

Cash Money Retards Is Official!

New Domain!

Using some early eHow earnings that I had sitting in my PayPal account, I went ahead and purchased cashmoneyretards.com from GoDaddy for around $10 (domain prices have gone up!). My dear friends on Digital Point recommended that if I can't afford to leave the free confines of Blogger and pay for my own hosting, I should at least use my own domain. A lot of them seem to know what they're talking about, so I went ahead and made it happen by following some built-in Google instructions. Love that fresh domain smell on this fine summer's eve.

Friend Whore

It's been a couple days, and no one has suggested any Facebook friends for me, so I've been forced to be proactive. I appropriately joined the group 'Friend Whore', where "the group's sole purpose is to add each other as friends". I got a little dirty, and sent out a couple hundred friend invites, which by the way, takes for freaking ever. I'll let you know if I catch anything!

Tweetle Dumbass

I also followed a few hundred people on Twitter in hopes of some reciprocation. To be honest, Twitter doesn't really do it for me, but due to its insane popularity, I'd be a fool to ignore it. To help ease my lazy ass into my revived Tweeter role, I signed up with SocialOomph (used to be Tweetlater), so I could have access to a plethora of automated Twitter tools. Now, whenever someone follows me, SocialOomph automatically sends them a direct message from my Twitter account. I also have it set so that if a new person follows me, I follow them, and on the flip, if someone unfollows me, I give em a little who's your father. I only signed up for the basic account, but it looks like you get a ton of extra features if you go pro. Seems like a pretty slick program.

Digital Point: My Happy Place

Yesterday, I had a brief lull in the day, giving me an opportunity to continue my online earning efforts. I decided to use my time posting to a couple message boards. Seeking some constructive feedback and a quick traffic surge (something better than the traffic I've been getting from my so-called "friends" on Facebook), I searched "Webmaster Forum" in Google, and second on the SERP was Digital Point. Sweet sweet Digital Point. I've found myself seeking info on DP (hehe...DP) a few random times in the past, but I never took it a step further and signed up for an account - once again, I'm slow to recognize a great thing sitting right in front of me - retarded.

I had a quick and easy plan to just hop on, make an account, and post a link to the blog, asking for feedback. It's becoming continuously clear to me that there's no quick and easy way to make money online. The plan was immediately thwarted when I discovered that one must meet a 10 post threshold before they can post a direct link on the forum. "Funky butt lovin'!", I thought to myself.

Don't worry though - this story has a happy ending. The chore of hitting the 10 post mark quickly became a pleasure. I'm sure a million better men before me have blogged about the wonders of Digital Point, but I truly don't care.

Digital Point is a playground for Internet attention whores like myself - I'm sorry everything I say has to be coupled with a metaphor for prostitution. On DP, you can get advice, give advice, trade links, trade ideas, get reviews, advertise your products...all in the good name of getting your brand out into the public eye (and just as importantly, Google's killer robot eye!). I got caught up in several discussions on increasing site earning potential, but three things in particular stood out that I'd like to focus on.

Ezine

Ezine is a massive article directory boasting a freakish amount of user generated content. Although they don't offer any direct revenue-sharing programs with basic accounts, the real pay-off comes from the traffic they send to your site (so I've heard). I read up a little on Ezine, and they've been around since 1999 publishing articles in every niche imaginable. Apparently, there was a time when linking a solid Ezine article to your site nearly guaranteed you a spot at the top of the Google SERP. Although they don't pack quite the same punch in today's game, there are still plenty of people who have nothing but good things to say about Ezine's results.

My wife recently wrote up an additional, more comprehensive guide to finding a good music therapist. This time, instead of posting the new article to eHow, I decided to post it to Ezine, linking it to the original eHow article with some keyword-rich anchor text. It typically takes 5-7 days for an Ezine article to be reviewed, but I'm anxious to see if it has a significant effect in the earnings and traffic/SERP categories. I'll be sure to let you know.

Youtube

Lots of chatter concerning Youtube optimization on Digital Point forums, and rightfully so. You can get an absurd amount of immediate exposure with the Youtube viral video equivalent of a sneeze. With just a slight bit of effort, you can easily transform that exposure into site traffic. Believe it or not, I've actually had small success with Youtube optimization strategies in the past:

Once upon a time, I ran a site called Gluttonforum, a magical place where fans of extreme eating and drinking could go to watch videos featuring practitioners of the deadly sin. A couple years ago, when I started the site, I filmed about a dozen or so videos of myself performing whatever gluttonous feat I could handle. Perhaps my most successful video, at 55,000 views, which still receives ~100 views a day, is titled Super Irish Car bomb. In this, my proudest moment, I took three shots of whiskey, three shots of Irish cream, dropped it in two pints of Guinness, and sent it down the hatch. Needless to say, Gluttonforum wasn't very successful (it's still live if you're bored), but any success it had was attributed to Youtube.

Seeing everyone on DP fuss about the power of Youtube made me realize that there's really not a whole lot stopping me from putting out a few more videos to bring in some extra traffic, and much needed revenue. I'm not promising any Super Irish Car Bomb caliber performances, but I'll try to brew something up in the near future.


Creating a Social Network Site

Finally, and damn it's getting late, a lot of cats on Digital Point are out there promoting not only their own blogs, but their own social networks as well. Although I'm no CMS (content management system) wizard, I can definitely cook something up on a nice open source platform like Elgg, Drupal, or Joomla. The original Gluttonforum (there were two phases - neither made it a month of consistent updates) was built on Joomla with an added extension called Community Builder, which is absolutely loaded with customizable features like message boards, user profiles, group support...incredibly powerful and intuitive for a free application.

I have a couple social network ideas in mind, but I'm held back by their initial start up costs. I can get economy hosting through GoDaddy for around $4.00/month, or unlimited bandwidth hosting through Bluehost for $8.00/month, but even considering those relatively small amounts, I'm in the hole as it is. To compromise, over the next couple months, I'll build a local site on my machine here at home, send it through the ringer, let some friends try it out, and if I'm convinced I can at least make enough to cover hosting fees, I'll breathe some life into it. As with everything else, I'll keep you updated with my progress.

I know I hammered out a lot of words tonight, but I feel I'm missing content worthy of teeth sinking. You'll have to forgive me - being retarded is taxing.

Week 1 Report For My Online Revenue Earning Efforts

In honor of Labor Day, I didn't have to work Monday, and like a damn fool, I thought I had eluded the proverbial "case of the Mondays". I was wrong. That dirty bastard sneaked into my Tuesday, and screwed it up, allowing me no time yesterday to update my online revenue earning progress. Anyway, excuses excuses, blah blah blah...here's my week one summary:

Financially speaking, this hasn't been a very successful week:

• I've made a whopping $.07 through Adsense Revenue on this blog, due to my 0% CTR
• I mentioned earlier that eHow is currently buggy, so I've only published one article (though I have several on the back burner). That article has netted $.49.
• At the moment, I don't have any other revenue streams, leaving me with a grand total of $.56.

I know $.56 is nothing, but it's something (riiiiight) - it's a start. Despite not earning enough income to even buy a scratch off ticket, I'm not writing off week 1 as a failure. I think I've set a pretty solid foundation for myself with this blog, and by ingesting a healthy dose of research, I've learned more about SEO, SMO, good blogging practices, and general online money making strategies in this week than I have my whole life. Not to mention, my Google Analytics report reflects a positive trend in traffic to this site. Though I have a very low unique visitor count (number of individuals who have visited the site - not page views), it continues to grow each day. Here's the Google Analytics traffic breakdown:







Yep, 36 unique visitors over the course of the past six days. Not much, but I'm optimistic. One encouraging element, is that the average visitor spends 05:06 on the site, which I believe tells me that the few folks who have wandered onto the blog are actually reading something.

On the flip side, one discouraging element is that my traffic is almost exclusively from referrals. Though I'm thrilled to have referral traffic, I haven't had one visitor set foot off of a search engine. I've checked, and the major search engines have my posts indexed, however, after examining my Google Webmaster tools reports, I allegedly have no attractive keywords.

Generally speaking, I think these results can mainly be attributed to the blog's infancy. After consulting the Google FAQ, it was brought to my attention that Google's crawler bots can take a while to build a comprehensive assessment of your site. When you combine this with the fact that my backlink count is currently weak, and that the "make money online" blogger's market is a savage place for a newbie, I don't think I'm doing too horribly. If a month from now, a reassessment shows that I'm still failing to pick up any search engine traffic, I'll strongly consider reevaluating my strategy. For now though, I'm accepting my results with a grin, and moving forward.

Note: If anyone has any suggestions, or has spotted a bonehead mistake or omission in my current SEO strategy, please don't hesitate to call me out. I'm still learning to ride, and I need an Uncle Joey to help push me a long (that's right, I alluded to Full House - wanna fight me?)


Regarding Project Friend Whore, I haven't made terrific progress. Stragglers from my first wave of invites are still wandering in, putting me at 128 friends. I'm still waiting for my siblings to "Suggest" their friends for me. Did you hear me? I'm still waiting!

Before I close, I'll note my most accomplished feat of the week - one that I didn't even consider before starting this online revenue earning project; of the 36 unique visitors who have stopped by CashMoneyRetards, nearly 10% of them have left me very constructive feedback in my comment postings. So, to Crystal, Scott, and Tim - much appreciated. I got warm fuzzies up inside of me...I can't blog to my mother so I blog to my diary...

Grizzly Adams Did Have A Beard: Online Income Advice From Friendly Industry Experts

You who have been following my posts for the past few days (I'm talking to a mirror right now), know that I'm a man on a mission, searching for and implementing online revenue earning strategies, employing expert-level SEO tactics, and planting backlinks like a seed drill (fun fact - Jethro Tull invented the seed drill).

Well folks, there's nothing more humbling than having the very first commenter on your blog point out a huge gaping hole in your efforts. Last evening, Scooter, bless his heart, made note that I failed to create a description for my site. A blog description is a field built into Blogger that gives an author a perfect opportunity to stuff his header with keywords. It's common knowledge that search engines love keywords. In addition, it's now common knowledge that I'm retarded. At least I'm living up to my namesake.

Thanks to Scooter's reminder, you'll now notice a brand new description in my blog header, jam-packed with keywords like "residual income", "online revenue", and "work from home". Seriously, thanks Scooter. Scoot (can I call you Scoot?) also referred me to a wealth of knowledge for suggestions on making money online - a blog ran by a guy named Griz. After reading through some of Griz's content, I realize how much I don't know. It's all great stuff, and I subscribed to his blog, but it's a bit discouraging.

How can having access to so much free content be discouraging?

Mirror, remember in my first post I mentioned that I've never kept a blog up for more than two weeks? It's because I have less focus than a camera wearing an eye patch. I get overwhelmed by information, get off task, quit, and start the next project.

Well not this time! I'm not gonna hide from you, Griz, you helpful bastard with your useful advice. I'm gonna follow your words and apply them! Steve Perry!

A page on Griz's site took me to a blog on making money with Google Adsense by a guy named the Road Warrior (these people have great freakin names!). The Road Warrior's blog, 'Working on the Go' really spoke to me. I read with eager eyes as he shared his pain...my pain. You see, like me, the Road Warrior struggled with balancing research, networking, building backlinks, and creating content, which are all things necessary for a building a great blog, but he got over it. Guys like Griz and the Road Warrior are my new inspiration. If I don't make it past two weeks with this blog, I give you all permission to call me a filthy friend, and friend me in my friender.

Just in case you're wondering why I've linked to Griz and Road Warrior using their blog descriptions (making money with Google) and not the titles (Working on the Go), it's because as much as search engines love backlinks to your site, they love keyword laden backlinks even more (anchor text). Griz and Road Warrior did me a favor, and though it was indirect, they gave me some great advice and I want to repay them by throwing some anchor text their way. That said, a link from me isn't worth dick, but it's the best I can do...I'm just filling their online tip jar. If you're interested in learning more on tipping etiquette, read my eHow article on the subject.

Facebook Friend Prude

It's been 24 hours since I created the handsome Duke Laserwood, and I'm exactly at the 100 Facebook friend milestone. Though I'm a very proud father, I'm also incredibly erratic, and at day 2, I think I already have to change my game plan. I came out yesterday talking about being a huge Facebook friend whore who, at the drop of a hat, would friend anyone right in the friender. But I think I misjudged myself...I'm not even a friend slut...I'm just a friend prude. No friend, don't try to cheer me up.

Today, I started ripping into the 'Big Trouble In Little China' fan page like I said I was going to in yesterday's entry, 'Filthy Stinking Friend Whore'. Then, almost immediately - only about 10 invites deep - I got a message in my inbox from a one of my stranger friends. It said, "Hi, do I know you?".

Ahhhhhhh! What a jerk! Why can't people just let a whore be a whore?! It's the world's oldest profession for crying out loud!

Seriously though...here's my beef:

I'm still planning on employing some blind date tactics to reach the 5000 mark, but the bulk of my strategy needs a bit more tact. Even though those dirty Tweet walkers (I think I just made that up - I'm calling it) do it all the time, for some reason, I just feel scandalous asking someone to be my friend for no reason - especially when they catch me doing it.

Remember when I said I was going to rifle through my brother and sister's network, and invite all of their contacts? I think, instead, I'm going to ask them to do it for me. Using Facebook's "Suggest a Friend" feature, all they need to do is go to my profile, click "Suggest a Friend for Duke Laserwood", check all of their friends, and hit "Suggest". While my siblings inherited my dad's balls, I got my mom's ovaries...I'm sure they won't mind participating in such an aggressive invitation strategy.

Alright, it's decided, that's my new staple tactic to complete phase 1 of Project Friend Whore (reach 5000 friends on Facebook). I'm going to con my friends into suggesting all of their friends to be friends with me (if Google really penalizes for keyword stuffing, I'm screwed).

Friends Friendsington McFriends! Farts!

Filthy Stinking Friend Whore

My good friends at eHow still have the site jacked up, so it looks like I'll be holding on to my submissions for a bit longer. No sweat though - there's plenty of other crap to get into. I was reading an article on problogger.net last night titled, '9 Things to Do To Make sure Your Next Blog Post is Read By More Than Your Mom'... some real decent ideas, but it's not anything I haven't heard before. One tip, however, suggested using Facebook (and other social media) status updates to lead your "friends" to your site. Although it's a no-brainer, it's a damn good suggestion. Right now, I have 254 Facebook friends. If I update my page, letting everyone know that I recently posted a new blog entry, all 254 of those sorry bastards who've claimed me as a friend will be alerted of the update. Chances are pretty that good a few of them will take the bait and visit the site.

But why not take it a step further? I mean, 254 potential unique visitors to the blog isn't a bad start, but it's not gonna make me much money. Not to mention, even if I capped out at Facebook's 5000 friends limit, my page would still be hidden from the rest of the Internet. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as I've posted some pretty screwed up stuff to my page in the past (think Tubgirl), but to really milk Facebook, I need a hell of a bigger funnel, and a page accessible to the public.

Enter the Facebook Fan Page

A few months ago, Facebook released the Fan Page. When it comes to driving traffic to your site, the Fan Page gives Facebook's ordinary profile page a butt-full of stitches. There isn't a cap on your fan base (that I could find anyway), your page is public-facing (as are the links that lead to your site), your fans automatically receive any updates from your blog, and when someone joins your fan club, all of their friends are alerted through a status update (viral potential).

You might ask, what kind of egotistical d-bag would want a Fan page for himself? Well, that would be a d-bag who needs to get out of debt. Let me explain with an example. Being a realist, I'll float some conservative figures to estimate the online revenue potential of having a solid Facebook fan base:

• Let's say I have 100 million fans, which isn't even half the U.S. population.
• Let's also assume that I make 10 daily blog posts, each one alerting my fan base with an update.
• Assuming I'm currently able to get about 8% of my Facebook friends to follow my update links, 98% probably wouldn't be a bad estimate once I hone my skills a little.
• Now, once they get on the site I need to consider the advertisement click through rate (CTR). 2.5% is roughly the industry average, but c'mon, these are my fans - let's say that 50% of my visitors see an ad that they like.
• Finally, how much are my ads worth? Well, right now, I'm doing a lot of my blogging on residual income, which has an average cost per click (Avg CPC) of $2.95. This New York Times article says that Google keeps 21.5% of the revenue, but since Google and I are pretty tight, I can see them leaving me with 95%.

So, let's do the math:

(2.95 x .95)(carry the 4)(.5(.98(100 million x 10) ) = $1,373,225,000/day

$1.37 billion every day - that's why I want a Facebook fan page. Now, I just gave you the variables involved - you can figure your own estimate, but you're wasting your time - mine's pretty sound.

What's my plan?

In the spirit of making how-to articles, I'm going to make a 'How to Create a Popular Facebook Fan Page' hypothesis. Why just a hypothesis? Because I've never technically made a Fan Page, my plan may be subject to change. Here she blows:

First, I need a solid friend foundation. If the maximum number of friends you can have on Facebook is still 5000, then I need to get 5000 friends. As the title of this blog suggests, I need to be a 'Filthy Stinking Friend Whore'. I started this project this afternoon, and this is what I've done so far...

I created an alias named Duke Laserwood. I used GIMP (open source Photoshop) to make a sweet hybrid of John Wayne's (The Duke) face on Laser's (former American Gladiator - Larry Csonka era, not Hulk Hogan era) body. You can check it out on the widget to the right of this blog.

Armed with the perfect name and the perfect picture, I started inviting the crap out of some friends to join my new network. In order to reach the 5000 friends mark, I'm going to have to stray from my circle a little and introduce myself to some new people. Although no one can resist The Duke, I don't want them to know I'm a total nut job, so I built a nice base with some of my current actual friends.

I just sent them a friend invite from Duke Laserwood's account saying something to the effect of, "Hey, this is actually Dave Lopan. I'm conducting a social experiment, and I'd really appreciate it if you'd accept this invite". So far, about 60 have bitten. My brother and sister are both social butterflies with around 800 friends each, so if I need to, I'll cannibalize their networks as well.

Next, I joined two 'Big Trouble In Little China' Fan pages, and around 10 'Big Trouble In Little China' group pages. Once I clean up with my "real friends", I'm going to invite some BTILC fans to join my crew. How do I know they'll follow? Look, our profiles may not share the status of "friends", but I know these people...anyone who's in a 'Big Trouble In Little China' fan club will have a hard time resisting a guy with John Wayne's head and an American Gladiator's body.

I'll probably continue this method by roping in the 'Remo Williams' and 'The Running Man' crowd until I hit my 5000 mark.

This is where I think it'll get silly

At 5000, I'm going to throw together a nice shiny fan page. I haven't decided yet, but I'm either going to stick with Duke Laserwood, or create a Cash Money Retards page. Regardless of the title, I'm going to invite my 5000 friends to come along. Honestly, I'm not expecting more than 500 to follow me, but that's ok.

As I mentioned before, Fan Pages aren't just a place to rack up arbitrary popularity points, they're valuable tools used for growing your brand, which in my case is an imaginary bad ass named Duke Laserwood. After stuffing the Fan page with content via a feed from this blog, I'm going to seek out other pages to trade with.

I'll look for bloggers and webmasters who not only share similar content, but a like sized fan base as well. The Mashable network (Social Media News), for instance, boasts 42000 fans. Even rollin' 500 deep, they'll probably be a bit out of my league. No worries though. There are a lot of other similar sites out there flirting with numbers in my neighborhood. These are the dudes I'm looking to trade clout with - at least till I hit my 100 million mark.

I'll be monitoring my Friends/Fans count, as well my Facebook referral traffic from here on out. At the top of every blog entry, I'll post my current statistics. I need to check Google's TOS before I do this, but I'd also like to include my AdSense statistics (click-thru rate, revenue earned...).

Well, this is by far the most whopping of my five posts - coming in at 1300 words, I'd say it's quittin' time. Content is king, bitches.

Crap, one more thing: someone actually posted a link to my post yesterday regarding eHow's shenanigans at Propeller.com

Hip hip!

eWho?

It's 9:15 PM Eastern US, and this is the first time I've had a chance to touch the PC today. I was hoping to log on to eHow and contribute this stack of articles I have sitting on my PC, just itching to get published (so I can start making hundreds of cents). Unfortunately though, the site is bugged the hell out right now. No one can upload images, and a whole gang of folks can't even publish their articles at all. My how-to's are all IT tutorials, and they're worthless without screen shots. Me and a few thousand other folks could really use a bone right now.

I know it's Labor Day weekend, but, eHow, what's goin' on here? It's been nearly two weeks since the site's been shot to hell, and we're not even getting any feedback. I'd understand if the only victims were the authors, and you guys just decided to stop caring, but aren't you getting screwed here too? You essentially have a mob of revenue earners just dying to make you some money, and they're stuck holding their doodles in their hands.

I have no idea what your earnings reports look like (you at least have $.34 from my article yesterday), but if it were my site, I'd be whippin' programmers like dogs, outsourcing like a pimp, and leaving lipstick marks on the angry mob's ass until my crap quit crappin' out.

That said, I love you eHow, I truly do, but come on, dude.

I'm gonna stay up a few more hours tonight, write another article for the back burner, do some research on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SMO (Social Media Optimization), and maybe see if I can get a blog author with more traffic that my three hits to link to me.

Oh, one thing I did do tonight, which took a good three or four seconds, was submit this blog RSS feed to pingler.com. Pingler is one of a few freely available services that takes your blog URL, and pings dozens of blog directories automatically. For those unfamiliar with the term, pinging is when you tap a blog directory or a search engine on the shoulder to let them know that your content has been been updated. Pingler goes out and notifies blog directories, like Technorati, that the Cash Money Retard just got retardeder (by the way, I know my blog name is far from PC, but the URL is already set in stone, I'm four posts deep, and I really think it has a nice ring to it...if it makes you feel any better, I'm making fun of myself, not the retarded...I've always thought Chris Burke was cool).

Just to show you what pingler is all about, I'll throw together a quick how-to (This blog engine let's me upload images!):

1. Visit Pingler.com






2. In the required fields, fill in your blog's name, the URL of the site or the feed, leave the default ping services list or edit it to your liking, fill in the captcha field, and hit "Ping My Site!".

























3. Watch the magic as your blog update is fed to the world!

Nighty night!

Early Signs of Online Income

That's right, I earned $.34 in uncut online revenue yesterday baby! That's enough to cover my five minute car ride to the dealership to return my new car. Of course, if I keep making huge earnings like these, I won't have to. It was actually my wife's post that's currently the sole breadwinner. Other than the posts I've made to this blog, her single publication is more than I've contributed.

That reminds me - I never announced this month's online revenue goal. I'm shooting for $25.00, and 50 posts. That can be a combination of this blog, making money on eHow, or any other money making scheme I plan on hatching. If you've actually gone back and read my previous two posts, you probably think I'm a quitter and a filthy liar, as I pledged to make several hundred dollar every month. Well, you're only half right. I'm both of those things on a consistent basis, but I think $25.00 is a good foundation for the coming months.

My reasoning? Unless my next eHow article is titled, "How to Make a Roadkill Sex Doll" (just staple a bunch of possums and raccoons together until it feels right), my posts aren't going anywhere. They're gonna grow old with the Internet and collect that sweet residual income. I realize that I'd be a fool to think that because this month's articles brought in $25, the same articles will continue to draw similar earnings in the following months. However, they're still little buckets under a money drip, and no matter how small the amount, they'll never stop filling up.

I guess that makes me the billionth person to explain the concept of blogging for residual income. What do I win?

I've been making progress on my eHow articles. Unfortunately, however, the site currently has a bug that prevents image uploading, so I'm going to hold off until they fix it, as images are essential to how-to articles.

I'm gonna go ahead and wrap this up with one final note: I mentioned earlier that I canceled my cable to ease the monthly bill blow - well, it's been two days and I already miss the mindless entertainment, so I subscribed to NetFlix. Streaming movies on my Xbox is as close to cable as I'll get for a while (until I have to hock my Xbox).

Day 2: First Movement

Well, between managing a small business network and my infant's explosive diarrhea, I actually managed to make a little headway on the online money-making front. I haven't actually made anything yet, but I've begun three major efforts:

Firstly, my wife, who I had to beg two days ago to let me launch my residual income campaign, totally blew me away and whipped up an eHow article for me. For those unfamiliar with eHow.com, it's one of the leading how-to sites on the Internets, relying heavily on user-generated content. More importantly to my interests, eHow shares its ad revenue with its authors. To add further appeal, Google for some reason loves eHow. It's not uncommon to rack up a few thousand hits rather quickly if you choose your keywords right. However, don't expect the Midas touch; my articles range anywhere from 72-3,500 total hits.

I haven't invested a significant amount of time creating how-to articles for the site (14 so far), but a few months ago, I punched out a dozen articles and added $13 bucks to my PayPal account. It doesn't sound like a lot, but since then I've accrued an average of $3.00 every month. Yes, I realize that still doesn't sound like much, but the potential is there. In theory (some folks have actually pulled it off), if you fine tune your keyword optimization skills, focus on niche topics, and slap together a couple hundred articles, you may be looking at a healthy monthly money drip.

Ok, let me get off eHow's lap and back on topic; my wife, a music therapist, wrote her first article aptly titled, How to Find a Music Therapist In Your Area. She knows even less than I do about writing online for money, and she still managed to throw a decent article together. I'm quite proud...and sometimes she lets me touch her boobs...she's nursing so I need a napkin...it's cool though.

Noting my second accomplishment yesterday, still riding the eHow wave, I started putting together a series of articles focusing on a centralized theme; a project if you will. I'm creating 5-6 how-to articles all revolving around optimizing browsing software (in Windows) for a virus free experience. It primarily focuses on virtual machine usage, so it's going to take me a couple days to capture and organize all the necessary screenshots. Because it's a series, I'd like to publish them all together, linking them to each other in eHow. Unfortunately, eHow uses "NoFollow" links (opposed to DoFollows, NoFollows are ignored by search engines), but in a tight community like eHow, there's still plenty of power in the human element. I'll keep ya posted on this project

Lastly, I necked a little with Google. Not only did I add Google Adsense ads to this blog to generate a little residual income (cliche buzzword, but it offers such a soothing sensation), but I also installed Google Analytics on this blog to monitor my traffic. So far, a hit from Charlotte. Thanks mom! It's cool though - I'm not expecting any noteworthy traffic for a while - these things take time. I'll continue to keep you up-to-date, mommy. What's that? You want to send me money so I don't have to keep up this shameful charade?

Just Another Dumbass Trying To Make Money Online

Yeh, so my wife and just bought a one-of-kind Toyota Camry during the "Cash for Clunkers" bash last month. We did this because the law says that our new daughter is too special to ride shotgun in my alleged baby killing Ford Ranger. That truck and I had a good thing going - it was a clunker, but I didn't owe anything on it. We had to get a new car, as we really didn't have much of a choice, but like idiots, we dove into the purchase without accurately evaluating our financial situation.

After going over our budget last night, we realized that with the recent inclusion of a new car payment and weekly daycare bills, we're a few hundred bucks in-the-hole (monthly). The tone of my writing makes me sound far cooler than I am - I'm actually crapping in my already crapped-in pants.

Like every goon who thinks he doesn't have enough time to work two jobs, I'm going to try pick up some supplemental income on the Internet. And, like every goon out there trying to make money blogging on the Internet, I'm going to tell the world about it by keeping a log, or as Ric Romero so eloquently coins it, a blog.

I have enough in childhood savings bonds to get us through a month or two, but if we're not seeing improvement after that, I'm gonna have to rip into my IRA and 401k stash...I really don't want to do that. I suppose, if I really fall of my ass, I could look for a part-time job...screw that though.

Last night, shortly after sobbing on the phone during the cable disconnection process, I managed to talk my wife into giving me a shot at some Internet money making projects. I've been passively making attempts at generating residual income over the past four years or so. Using ad revenue and affiliate marketing, my efforts have yielded roughly $100. That said, I know that my goal of several hundred dollars in a month is damn near impossible.

Like I mentioned before though, I have a couple months to make this happen. It's still pretty ridiculous to assume I can pull it off, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm going to try my hand at generating some online revenue, all the while tracking my meek progress on this blog for your amusement.

Sadly, if I can keep this up for more than two weeks, it will be my most successful blogging attempt ever. Please have pity on this cash money retard.