Search engine optimization and marketing is generally classified into two groups, white hat and black hat.

White Hat

What hat is that which abides by the generally accepted rules and regulations that search engines have created.  This generally includes original content and a clear indication of whether or not something has been paid for (reviews, links, etc).

Black Hat

Black hat is that which does whatever it wants regardless of what search engines say.  Black hats generally include spam, cloaking, and other techniques to mislead and trick either users, search engines or both.

Generally people think that white hats are good and black hats are bad.  While that is a common misconception, it’s not true.  Since there are no laws regulating the search industry, what black hats are doing is not abiding by a companies rules.

Imagine the black hat situation like this, if Pepsi called you tomorrow and told you to stop drinking Coca-Cola products or else you can’t drink Pepsi any longer, what would you do?  You would most likely get angry that Pepsi thinks they have a right to tell you what to do, and then start drinking whatever you feel like.

Search engine marketing is the same way.  Google (a company) tells people what to do (use NoFollow for paid links, don’t sell links or reviews, don’t cloak, give people exactly what they’re looking for, etc) and if you don’t do what they say, you’re not allowed to drink their Pepsi (or be in their search engine).

Sounds a little crazy doesn’t it.  Keep in mind that in this industry, Google has the only drink that tastes good, everything else is crap.  That means that if you don’t play by the rules, and Google finds out, you’re forced to rely on traffic from other sources, those crappy sources.

White hats on the other hand pump out quality content for most of their lives and usually don’t make the kind of money that black hats can make.  Black hats are constantly working because if they don’t work they stop making money.  White hat sites keep making money for years to come because they have high quality (think Fresno) content and trusted links.

So in my mind black hats aren’t bad, they’re just different.  If I had the technical skills and ability to write code who knows which side of the fence I’d be on.

If you’re a good writer and enjoy writing about a variety of topics, but lack a lot of technical know how and don’t know much about internet marketing, it might be time for a partnership. These type of partnerships are great for you because someone else is handling the work you don’t know how to do, while you focus on what you’re good at, writing.

For someone like me, these partnerships work great as well because I get to focus on what I do well (marketing) and someone else keeps a website updated with fresh content on a daily basis. It’s a very symbiotic relationship and good for everyone involved. Why do you think the biggest websites all have multiple authors? They have multiple writers so that they are always serving new content. That is key to internet marketing and making money online.

If you’re the kind of writer described above and would like to partner with me on this website or another website (I have hundreds of different niches), please contact me. We can discuss specifics when you contact me about this possible joint venture.

Your job is writing. The more you write, the more the website typically makes. I’ll focus on buying links and generating traffic through a variety of means, while still writing, just not as much. Not only will you have the chance to make money online, but you’ll also get to learn a lot about internet marketing and how to make money online with websites.

Associated Content is a website that will buy your articles on thousands of categories. You can sell them just about any article you write as long as it has a topic (a specific focus is important for any kind of writing.

Creating an account with Associated Content is easy, and free. Even if you don’t live in Fresno, you can still get a free account for a limited time. Use this link to get your free account.

Associated Content makes money by buying your content then selling ads along with your content. So when someone comes from Google to look at your article on Associated Content, they see a variety of ads that are related to the article you’ve written. AC hopes someone will click an ad or buy a product, that is how they make their money.

AC also may sell your article to another website, or newspaper and make money that way. I’ve submitted about 10 different articles to associate content and made money with every single article. My best article earned $7.48 and my worst article earned $4.18. Not bad for being able to write on any subject you choose.

If you have some articles written and want to see if you can make any money with your articles, give Associated Content a try.

Oh ya, as a bonus, they pay you when people visit your articles, the bonus payments aren’t much, but once you get a lot of articles it really starts to add up!

Like the last few posts about making money online by writing, this post isn’t specific to Fresno or the Central Valley. You can take part in this even if you live outside of Fresno (or California).

People like me make money by having websites about specific topics. When you have a website about a specific topic, one of the ways to make money by writing is to write a lot of quality content. Your website will be where you put all of your articles and the content you write. Depending on your area of expertise, your website can be about anything. This method is contrary to the “sell your articles for money” idea because all of the content is still owned by you and you’ll hopefully make money long term, not just when you sell.

One of the easiest platforms to publish content is through a blog. A great blog platform that is free is WordPress. It’s easy to use and easy to install. Once you have your blog set up (buy your own domain from NameCheap) you start writing about whatever topic you chose. Your topics should all be related to your main topic.

For example, if your blog is about widgets, your articles could be “Buy Used Widgets”, “Find Red Widgets Online”, and “How To Find A Lost Widget”. Those are called “long tail” keywords. They are phrases that not many people will search for, but a few people will find your site through each article.

A good starting goal is one post per day, 7 days a week. Once you begin to write faster, try to up the goal to 10 posts per week, then two posts per day. Eventually you’ll be such a quick writer that if you have 3-5 hours per day, you can write at least 10-15 posts per day. If you’re producing that much content you’ll have a big audience and surely start making money online with a website!

One of the ways to make money by writing is to sell your articles. People like me are always looking to buy articles. The going rate for a 500 word article is between $3-15 depending on quality. If you’re a good writer and can write about a variety of topics, you should be able to get $5-7 per article by selling those articles directly to a website owner.

The difficult part of this approach is actually finding the webmaster that is looking to buy articles. There are a few ways to find people wanting to buy articles on specific topics.

1. Email website owners.

This is going to be the most difficult. You’re going to be cold calling on a bunch of different website owners with no presell and no recommendation. You won’t receive a lot of return emails and you’ll spend a lot of time contacting people.

2. Set up shop.

A long term idea is to set up your own website and list the articles you have for sale. You can list them in packs of articles, for example you could list 10 automotive related articles and post the title of one or two as examples. You could then list the price for all 10 articles. You could also have a lot of other topics for which you currently have articles written, and then even have a list of topics you can write articles about. A few good references would help you sell your articles.

3. Make them come to you.

By far, this is the easiest way to sell your articles, however you might not get as much money as the first two methods.  The way you accomplish this is to create an account in a few forums where webmasters can be found.  My favorite is DigitalPoint.  Once you have your account created, you’ll want to make 50-100 posts so you don’t look like a complete newbie.  If you can, it would also be a good idea to buy and sell a few small things so you can get some good iTrader feedback.  Post count and iTrader is a good indication to potential buyers that you’re legit.  The higher your iTrader, the more money you’ll get for your articles.  Articles in forums generally sell for around $5 per 500 words.  You might be able to get more, depending on the niche of your articles, and how badly someone needs them.

Writing may not be one of your favorite past times, but writing can definitely make money online. There are about 10 different easy ways to make money with writing, but the first place to start is by actually writing. Find a topic that you like writing about and write 10 articles (300+ words per article) about different aspects of that subject.

For instance, if you love writing about cars, your 10 articles could be topics like, top selling cars of 2007, most reliable cars, 5 ways to save money on auto repairs, etc.

Once you have those 10 articles there are a lot of different ways to make money. In the next few articles I’ll give you a few ways to make money by writing. This doesn’t have to be done in Fresno, the beauty of making money online, is that no matter where you live, Fresno, Clovis, or Alaska, you can still be part of this!

Part One: Make Money By Selling Your Articles

Part Two: Make Money With a Website of Your Own

Part Three: Make Money With Associated Content

Part Four: Make Money With Writing Partnerships

Many times when buying and selling websites (not all about Fresno, but some), I don’t like to publicize the fact that I’m selling a website.  Most of the time I want to sell the website under the radar, meaning, you have to know where to look to even know the website is for sale.

I prefer the transactions to take place either via email or through PM in a forum.  In the case of email and PM, there is nothing visible noting that a particular website is for sale.  One of the reasons I like to hide the fact that a domain or website is for sale is because if the sale doesn’t go through, a future buyer can find the listing or thread (even in Google Cache) that shows the site for sale and then know the old price and information.

If the traffic has declined or the price has gone up, the potential buyer will want to know why.  Instead of starting with a clean slate, you start with at least one strike against you.

So if you’re going to sell a website in a forum, use your signature.  Say something like, “Website for Sale, $125 monthly income, 5000 uniques, 400 indexed pages, PM for more info.”

You’ll get a lot of people asking about the site, but more importantly you take the conversation immediately to a location (PM or email) that search engines and future buyers can’t find!

For many years people in Fresno have been buying at yard sales and estate sales and turning around and selling their purchases on eBay at a nice little profit. Personally I’ve only sold a few things on eBay, but thought I would give it a try again.

After listing a few items I didn’t have any bids. Still don’t have any action on any of my auctions. I don’t know if my title is bad or the product isn’t desirable. I’ve been looking into Chuck Mullaney’s eBay course, but before I bought it I wanted to see if there were any reviews. I’ve seen other ebay courses promising gold at the end of the rainbow but wasn’t sure this was the best.

Any opinions on Chuck Mullaney’s stuff?

One of the best methods of getting traffic to your website is through social marketing.  Social marketing includes using websites like StumbleUpon and Technorati.

Since you want to not only be on those sites, but be listed at the top of the search and static rankings, that takes time and purpose.  Technorati is about incoming links, if you can get more links you can do better on Technorati.  Roseate Marketing has another way to get links, link to each other.  If you link to their site, they’ll link back to you and everyone will benefit.

A Search Engine Weblog has a few other ideas including my favorite, be interesting.  If your blog is interesting, people will link to it because you have a lot of great information.  Linkrain suggests you buy blog posts.  As most people know that has been a bad idea for about a year or more.  Google has ways of tracking paid posts so unless you’re buying under the radar links, be prepared to get Google Slapped.  Memwg suggests you claim your blog, always a good idea, but also to ping properly.  If you’re going to ping a site, make sure you’ve already linked to them.  That will place a trackback on their site, another link according to Technorati.

There you go, good luck increasing that Technorati rank!

AmSher  http://www.amsher.com/

AmSher is a family business. The firm started in 1939 as a credit-clothing store, later expanded into the credit furniture business and, in 1986, evolved into the nationally ranked receivables management firm. AmSher is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama with a second collections location in Tulsa. They are licensed to collect in all 50 states.

Fee for collection services:
17% of funds recovered*

Firstsource, LLC  http://www.firstsource.com/

Firstsource Solutions Limited is a global provider of collections and outsourcing solutions. Our focus is on delivering exceptional results to our clients. Our global standards, proven expertise and extensive experience have supported many of the nation’s most prestigious companies dramatically improving their collection efforts. We ardently address and challenge ourselves on issues of performance, productivity, results, reporting processes, automation sophistication and associate satisfaction.

Fee for collection services:
15% of funds recovered in the first month*

Fee decreases to 10.5% in the second month and to 7.35% thereafter.

Fee increases by 5% for any payment collected which brings borrower balance current.

 Penncro Associates, Inc.  http://www.penncro.com/

Penncro, one of the largest and most diversified outsource providers in the accounts receivable industry, was founded in October of 1982. Penncro services a variety of industries in the accounts receivables business, including Auto Finance, Banking, Telecommunications, Utilities, Retail, and Mortgages. We provide outsourcing services for early out, pre charge-off collections as a first or third party. We also provide recovery collection services at the primary and secondary levels. Our experience includes partnerships with some of the largest credit grantors in the world.

Fee for collection services:
15% of funds recovered in the first month*

Fee decreases to 10.5% in the second month and to 7.35% thereafter.

Fee increases by 5% for any payment collected which brings borrower balance current.

Everyone has that stuff that they bought at one time with the intention of using a lot more than they actually do.  You know, those bicycles in the garage that haven’t seen the open road in three years.  What about the treadmill that you have had shoved under the bed since last New Year’s when you only kept your resolution for 7 days?  Time to clean out your life and garage!

I’m as guilty as you, but that’s no excuse for not cleaning out the clutter in our lives.  Consider this, most people have at least $500 worth of stuff they don’t actually use in their house that could be sold!  Now is a great time to sell some stuff on eBay or my personal favorite, Craigslist.

If you don’t believe me that you have stuff that you could sell that people actually want, open up eBay and Craigslist and give it a chance.  Type into the search box that item you don’t think anyone would want.  Mine is an old graphing calculator.  Craigslist shows two graphing calculators, one of them is my model and is listed at $85!  eBay shows 599 current graphing calculator auctions from $.99 to $700!

That was just one item I have but haven’t used in 10 years.

Today I’ve been thinking about alternative revenue streams that I’ve never used, and one of those is in-text advertising. Basically they change a word or phrase from inactive to active and make it into a link that takes the visitor to a product page or website. Some of them are pay per click and some are pay per sale, meaning that you get paid when someone buys a product. They usually pay more than pay per click, but also happen less often. The PPC and PPS methods will be better on some sites and worse on others. I think it could be a good fit for Jagdu.

I know there are a lot of ways to make money online, not just with affiliate networks and contextual advertising and I want to experiment with a few of those other revenue streams. I’m looking to begin earning a living online starting yesterday!  Currently I know about Chikita Linx, Kontera ContentLink (pretty popular), and Amazon Content Links.

I found this review, but it isn’t very complete.

Anyone know of any really good reviews comparing the programs that do this type of advertising?

Well, I have a goal for this site. Although the goal is small, it will be achieved without spending a dime. My first goal is to have this site generate 100 page views per day. That goal seems easy, but with a new blog, not spending any money on branding or links, it makes it a little more difficult. This is a fun goal because it encourages me to comment on other websites and send trackbacks which are good for my site (content) and their site (links).

In the end, the goal of this website is to generate revenue. You’ve got to start somewhere and without traffic you’ll never make any money. Starting with 100 page views and keep that goal through the end of the year will be difficult with all of the family activities coming up. Maybe I should plan to schedule some posts to keep people coming back. After only two days I have 10 rss subscribers and almost 150 unique visitors. Not bad for just two days to a brand new site!

Any suggestions?

Scott from BrokeToBallin.com has a great post (albeit a little old) about how to earn a living online. I thought I would share his highlights and expound with my own.  Making money online is nothing new to Scott and I’ve known him for almost a year.

Scott says, “One thing I’ve learned is that making enough money to survive on, say $100 a day, isn’t very difficult. I’m going to give you a run down of a few of the things I’ve been doing for extra money, so if you’re struggling to clear $2.00 a day with adsense, then you might want to consider some of these ideas.”

eBay Affiliate Program

Scott’s ideas include eBay affiliate program where you can literally set up a website about anything and sell your visitors on the products being sold on eBay. You make money when they buy something or create a new account with your affiliate ID. Finding these hidden niches on ebay is very easy. Just start surfing and clicking links until you find something that interests you. Decide what other products are similar and that you enjoy. Then find a niche that they both fit into. Sign up for the Commission Junction affiliate program and start making money with an affiliate program.

Write and Sell Content Sites

Scott has another idea that I don’t necessarily think is the best for sustained income but is definitely great for short term income. Scott says, “You may be surprised at what a content site with no traffic/rev can sell for. Get an account at all of the major forums, Digital Point, Site Point, ect, and just go to town, think of some niches, build a few 10 page mini sites, and you can very easily clear $100 a day with only a few hours of work, depending on how productive you can be.”

I can tell you from experience that it really is that easy. Most niche sites without any traffic sell for $50-100 depending on the seller and the niche. If your site is making a little money and has a little traffic, it will easily sell for double that. I would recommend spending some time on building each site a little before selling it. Add some affiliate links, submit it to directories, write and submit an article or two and they give it a month. After a month try to sell it for $100-200. If you do this every day you’re on your way to earning a living online.

Write, Write and Write

Scott’s last idea is to write until your fingers bleed (sorry, I added a little drama). Scott says, “Write 20 decent articles a day, figure out a way to sell them, and you’re golden.” Also from personal experience I can tell you that if you can write decently about a variety of topics and niches, you should have no problem making money online. The only limitation will be the amount of time you’re able to spend working online. If you’re single and have no obligations and are willing to put in 12 hours of hard work per day (fun work as well) then making $100-200 per day should be REALLY easy. Making $300-500 is very possible with little experience.

Making money online is really one of my favorite past times and one of the the things I enjoy most about the internet. Making money and playing Starcraft. Two of my favorite hobbies actually.

One of the best ways to make money online is through selling affiliate products and services.  By selling an affiliate product you’re essentially becoming the middle man and making money by selling the product or service for the company to the end user.

One of my favorite affiliate marketing companies is Azoogle Ads.  Azoogle is a company who has multiple companies and acts as the middle man between you and the company with the product or service.  They negotiate how much you’ll get paid and how the affiliate offer will work.   For example, they contact XYZ Flowers Online and say, “We can send you 1,000 customers per day and we’ll want you to pay us $5 per customer sent to your website that makes a purchase.  Azoogle then opens that offer to their affiliates who make $4.50 per customer sent.  They make money, the flower company makes money and you make money as well.  On top of that, the customer finds a good place to buy flowers online.

It’s a win-win-win-win (Azoogle, XYZ Flowers, You, Customer)!  Get started with affiliate marketing today by signing up with Azoogle Ads.