Internet Marketing Notes » Making Money Online

How to Make Money From Your Writing Skills?

Jason — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:22:39 +0000

I’ve done (and still doing) some writing – earning me not cash but free review copies of products. However, there are some people who have earned a nice flow of constant cash for their writings.

Believe it or not, people are willing to pay you lots of money to write for them, especially online businesses and publications. In fact, the demand for writers is higher than ever, with thousands of mom-and-pop business looking to outsource their writing tasks.

Monika Mundell and Gobala Krishnan has produced a guide called “Freelance Superstar“. It’s said to be a “complete guide to get started with freelance writing”, so it’s probably most suited to newbies who want to get in the game with a bang.

Main Product Content

The product comes with a nice PDF guide that reveals key components and tips on becoming a freelance writer:

How to get started with freelance writing
What to expect from freelance writing
Online writing job sites exposed
How to attract high-paying clients
Regular writing vs. SEO writing
Regular writing vs copywriting
How to enhance your language and writing skills
How to get regular clients and stable income
How to get paid as a freelance writer

.. and much more.

Supporting Tools and Documents

Besides the main guide, Gobala and Monika also provide you with valuable supporting tools and documents. These are indeed quite useful and will help you save lots of time. You’ll also get:

Email templates you can use to solicit for clients
Process map for your freelance career
Gorgeous “Portfolio” WordPress themes
Step-by-step blogging video tutorials

I recommend anyone with a knack for writing to seriously take a look at “Freelance Superstar“:

Click here to learn more on how to make money from your writing skills

(Tip: As you leave their site, don’t forget to download your free audio interview on getting started with freelance writing.)

Monetize Your Website with AuctionAds

Jason — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:17:37 +0000

I’ve just received an e-mail notifying me that AuctionAds is now part of TLA and that new AuctionAds publishers will automatically receive $25 in their account on signing up.

I’ve not paid much attention to AuctionAds even though it has been around for several months now. With the new publisher bonus/incentive, I thought I might as well give AuctionAds a try.

Signing up with AuctionAds

Signing up with AuctionAds took barely a minute. Really, there’s not much to it other than some basic personal info and PayPal ID (for payment).

Sign up as an AuctionAds publisher here

Generating ad code and placing ads on a site

Generating the Javascript ad code was easy too. Just log in to the members’ area, and go to Get Code. Specify the keywords to trigger the ads, a campaign name (think AdSense channel), and ad type/format.

The ad formats are similar to those found in AdSense and the colors of the background, borders and text can be customized. When done, a preview is generated. Copy the code and embed it into the site HTML….Voila! It’s done!

Unlike AdSense, you can place as many ads as you want on one page. The ads feature products from the eBay marketplace and given the diverse range of products available on eBay, tailoring the ads to a site content shouldn’t be much of an issue — great for long-tail sites! Oh…should I mention that AuctionAds ads can co-exist with AdSense ads.

How money is made?

AuctionAds is a pay-per-action program. So money is made after the user clicks on an ad listing and takes action on eBay. According to the FAQ,

Actions are defined as a Winning Bid, a Buy-it-Now or a confirmed user registration.

I’m trying out AuctionAds on a few sites and will report back here on the ad performance.

If you’re not on AuctionAds yet, do hurry, as you stand to receive $25 as a new publisher — before the offer runs out!

Sign up as an AuctionAds publisher here

The Potential in Text Link Ads

Jason — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 17:24:58 +0000

I didn’t pay much attention to it earlier. I should have… it’s Text Link Ads (TLA). The ads are in the form of paid text links embedded within a site.

To date, I’ve gotten a little over $320 in total from Text Link Ads within the last few months of this year. This is from a software development-related site of mine.

I know TLA has made thousands’ of dollars a month for some publishers but consider this: That “small” amount I’ve earned so far from TLA is still worth 3-4 years of my web hosting fees for that site. Not bad!

One of the advertisers is a web hosting company. I’m considering hosting with them. Maybe it’s just my way of paying them back but seriously, they have a good package.

Caveat

I’d like to share this with everyone: Beware of advertisers who use TLA to increase a site’s Page Rank (PR) rather than to gain genuine exposure for a product. Google doesn’t like this form of paid text links and the consequences to both advertiser/publisher could be disastrous.

Jump Aboard

That aside, TLA also has a good affiliate program and if you’re not on TLA, it’s certainly worth a look!

Sign up with Text Link Ads now

New Google Apps Referrals

Jason — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 04:11:01 +0000

Two weeks ago, Google announced the Google Apps referrals program. Google Apps provides customized email addresses (powered by Gmail), Google Calendar, Google Talk, Docs & Spreadsheets and Page Creator. It’s free and it’s hosted by Google. [UPDATE: Google has retired its referrals program in August 2008.]

Google Apps publishers earn $5 per referral after the following conditions are met:

Referred visitor signs up for Google Apps with a domain that has not already been signed up for the service;
That person’s domain must then have one or more Google Apps email accounts in use for four consecutive weeks.

However, the referral program is currently available to US publishers only.

Amazon Context Links: Yet Another Way of Monetizing a Site

Jason — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 13:58:05 +0000

For those of you who are looking for more ways of monetizing your site, there’s exciting news. Amazon has launched the Context Links Beta program.

Context Links automatically add links on-the-fly based on your page content (much like Kontera and Intellitext). When a user follows the link and purchases a product, you’ll earn referral fees. So, it’s a CPA (Cost Per Action) program. All you need to do to get it running is to embed a piece of code (Javascript) in your page and let the code do the work for you.

There are numerous customization options for Context Links. For example, you can control the number of links to appear on each page, Amazon product categories to be linked, matching of exact product names only, the style of preview windows when hovering over links, and even style of the link underlines (e.g. single, double, dashed).

At the moment, I don’t have an idea of how well Context Links does its phrase-matching but I like the fact that you can actually limit matching to only the exact product names. That way, you’ll limit auto-creation of unnecessary links and hopefully, that translates to better conversion rate.

For more information, check out the details in this blog post.

New Pricing Structure for AdSense and AdWords Referrals

Jason — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 08:35:14 +0000

Are you one of those who felt that it was too difficult to generate revenue from AdSense and AdWords referrals?

Well, there’s good news for you. Google has introduced a new pricing structure for both referral programs, which will be as follows:

AdSense Referrals:

When a publisher who signed up for Google AdSense through your referral earns their first $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you will be credited with $5.

When that same publisher earns $100 within 180 days of sign-up and is eligible for payment, you will be credited with an additional $250.

If, in any 180-day period, you refer 25 publishers who each earn more than $100 within 180 days of their respective sign-ups and are all eligible for payout, you will be awarded a $2,000 bonus (bonus payouts are limited to 1 per year).

AdWords Referrals:

When an advertiser you refer spends $5 within 90 days of sign-up (in addition to the $5 sign-up fee) you will be credited with $5.

When that same advertiser spends $100 within 90 days of sign-up, you will be credited with an additional $40.

If, in any 180 day period, you refer 20 advertisers who each spend more than $100 within 90 days of their respective sign-ups, you will be awarded a $600 bonus (bonus payments are limited to 1 per year).

It’s nice to know that the new pricing structure is actually a result of users’ feedback. Google listens!

Earn Referral Fees for Amazon Unbox

Jason — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 08:06:58 +0000

There’s a new development in the Amazon Associates program. Now users of the program can earn referral fees on Amazon Unbox Video Downloads.

If you haven’t heard, Amazon Unbox allows site visitors to purchase or rent their favorite movies and TV shows to download and watch on their PC â€“ all in DVD quality.

Associates are eligible to earn 10%, a full 1.5% above the highest earnings tier, on all Unbox referrals (up to $1.50 per item). There is no limit to the number of items on which referral fees are earned.

Amazon Associates program has given me sporadic success so far but it’s nice to know there’s another referral option.

Updated AdSense Program Policies

Jason — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 05:38:58 +0000

It has come to my attention that there is an updated AdSense Program Policy page.

The policies remain the same but they are now in a more readable format.

If you’re an AdSense publisher, it’s important that you read the new policies (even if you think you have a good grasp of the policies – a refresher is always good ). Many AdSense publishers unknowingly violate the terms — thus leading them to get banned from the program.

Click here for the new version of the policies.

Policy Clarification on Google Ad and Image Placement

Jason — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 04:45:07 +0000

Placing images along side Google AdSense ads has always been a controversial issue.

Apparently, AdSense publishers had observed increased ad click-through rates (CTR) when images are cleverly placed beside ads. I have not experimented with this idea although I knew about it for quite some time.

There was even this notion that such image placements would be legal as long as there is a visible border between the images and the ads.

Recently, Google has set the record straight on image placements beside ad units. Here’s what Google has to say:

We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads. If your visitors believe that the images and the ads are directly associated, or that the advertiser is offering the exact item found in the neighboring image, they may click the ad expecting to find something that isn’t actually being offered. That’s not a good experience for users or advertisers.

Guess what? Having a space or border in between the images and ads is a NO NO.

I have noticed AdSense guru Joel Comm had removed the images from his ads in his blog.

The policy does not imply that you can’t have ads on web page with images. The key thing to remember is that when placing ads (or images for that matter), do not go for arrangements that will mislead or confuse your visitors.

So, those of you who used to enjoy higher CTR because of the clever image placements better rethink of your ad layout optimization strategy now.

Monthly Amazon Associates Payments Starting 2007

Jason — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 09:00:26 +0000

I just got news that Amazon Associates payment will be monthly instead of quarterly, beginning January 1, 2007.

Affiliates will be paid 60 days after end of each month.

For example, referral fees earned in January will be paid at the end of March, and payment of referral fees earned in February will be paid at the end of April.

It’s ironic that the Amazon Associates program has been one of the oldest affiliate programs around and yet it’s only in 2007 that Amazon Associates payment cycle has been reduced to a more typical monthly cycle.

Well, better late than never.