I've been hearing for quite some time now that Wordpress is a much better blogging platform than Blogger. Apparently, using Blogger is risky because you don't actually own all of your content and are at the mercy of Google's will to maintain the platform. Call me crazy but that doesn't sound great to me so I think I am finally going to join the Wordpress revolution.
What's more, I've recently heard about this great ebook about Wordpress from a fellow blogging friend. It basically gets you started in the right direction to making a money-generating blog for your desired niche. That sounds like what I'm trying to do. I was also told that there are a lot more features available on Wordpress than Blogger.
So, it looks like I'm going to be a convert. As soon as I'm finished preparing myself by reading this great ebook about Wordpress, I will definitely be making the transition. I will update my regular Blogger readers here before I'm gone for good but I like to give you all the heads up.
I'd love to hear from you if you've had experience using Wordpress and Blogger. Tell me what you liked and disliked about both and which you prefer. I'm all ears (or eyes as the case may be). Also, if you've read this ebook about Wordpress, please give me your thoughts on that as well.
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Wow! A Money-Making Tool to Add to Your Blog!
I was hunting around the web today (I won't call it procrastination since it was actually productive) and came across a really neat tool. The funny thing is that I was looking for a personal finance type widget that would offer money-saving tips to add to a new blog I'm working on. Instead, I find this great widget that you can place on your blog or website to collect tips from people!
Why do I find this exciting? Well first of all, I get a lot of requests from people asking about creating partnerships to my primary site at http://www.niquenyafulbright.com. I am very wary of those because often their sites are not relevant to my own and the content is usually really poor. Linking back to these sites would be to my own detriment as search engine spiders really don't like that type of thing. Secondly, these partnership requests are always from someone requesting a spot on my home page. That is a huge no-no to have your home page littered with unsightly ads. This new tool allows me to fix both of these problems and get paid!
ScratchBack allows you to place a widget anywhere on your website or blog that can accept monetary tips from your site's visitors. Your visitors "tip" you for providing them with useful, quality content and, in return, they get to place a text or image ad in your "topspot." You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, hence the name, ScratchBack.
The topspot is just a nifty name for a position in a links list. What happens is that every time a visitor tips you ($5 minimum), they then get to place their ad in the top link in your ScratchBack widget. When a new visitor makes a tip, their ad pushes the last tipper's ad further down the list. This happens with each new tipper until the original tipper's ad eventually is removed. You can have from 5 to 20 spots and designate any price $5 and up for each. For instance you might limit topspots to 5 on your home page and charge $100 each but decrease the price and increase the number of spots on pages further into your site. You could also choose another time increment from 1 to 30 days for ad display rather than have the ads automatically roll off. You can create as many ScracthBack widgets as you like but you can't use more than one on the same page or else it won't work.
Now here's the even cooler part! There are absolutely no refunds. Your visitor is simply "tipping" you for the great information you are already providing on your blog or website. This is a much better concept than those goofy "donate" buttons on everyone's blogs that have somehow always seemed misleading to me. Furthermore, if someone places an ad that I don't like, I have complete and total control as well as the right to remove it. Since there are no refunds, no harm done. I still get paid via PayPal. That means no worrying about Adult content or really bogus and shady ads that my readers wouldn't be interested in. Of course the developers of ScratchBack have to get something in return for their ingenious creation so they take a very slight commission (at the time of this blog posting the payout to publishers is 90%).
I am giving this tool a try starting today. You can see my ScratchBack widget on the top left of this blog. I am only charging the minimum of $5 for my topspots here so if you want to reward me for informing you about this tool, by all means tip me and advertise yourself as well. As an added incentive, if you are a great affiliate marketer and have affiliate links that would be of interest to my readers you can further monetize your efforts. There is even a directory of ScratchBack users that you can use to locate sites that cater to your target audience. I would love to hear about any other ideas you might have in using this great tool so leave me a comment.
Why do I find this exciting? Well first of all, I get a lot of requests from people asking about creating partnerships to my primary site at http://www.niquenyafulbright.com. I am very wary of those because often their sites are not relevant to my own and the content is usually really poor. Linking back to these sites would be to my own detriment as search engine spiders really don't like that type of thing. Secondly, these partnership requests are always from someone requesting a spot on my home page. That is a huge no-no to have your home page littered with unsightly ads. This new tool allows me to fix both of these problems and get paid!
ScratchBack allows you to place a widget anywhere on your website or blog that can accept monetary tips from your site's visitors. Your visitors "tip" you for providing them with useful, quality content and, in return, they get to place a text or image ad in your "topspot." You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, hence the name, ScratchBack.
The topspot is just a nifty name for a position in a links list. What happens is that every time a visitor tips you ($5 minimum), they then get to place their ad in the top link in your ScratchBack widget. When a new visitor makes a tip, their ad pushes the last tipper's ad further down the list. This happens with each new tipper until the original tipper's ad eventually is removed. You can have from 5 to 20 spots and designate any price $5 and up for each. For instance you might limit topspots to 5 on your home page and charge $100 each but decrease the price and increase the number of spots on pages further into your site. You could also choose another time increment from 1 to 30 days for ad display rather than have the ads automatically roll off. You can create as many ScracthBack widgets as you like but you can't use more than one on the same page or else it won't work.
Now here's the even cooler part! There are absolutely no refunds. Your visitor is simply "tipping" you for the great information you are already providing on your blog or website. This is a much better concept than those goofy "donate" buttons on everyone's blogs that have somehow always seemed misleading to me. Furthermore, if someone places an ad that I don't like, I have complete and total control as well as the right to remove it. Since there are no refunds, no harm done. I still get paid via PayPal. That means no worrying about Adult content or really bogus and shady ads that my readers wouldn't be interested in. Of course the developers of ScratchBack have to get something in return for their ingenious creation so they take a very slight commission (at the time of this blog posting the payout to publishers is 90%).
I am giving this tool a try starting today. You can see my ScratchBack widget on the top left of this blog. I am only charging the minimum of $5 for my topspots here so if you want to reward me for informing you about this tool, by all means tip me and advertise yourself as well. As an added incentive, if you are a great affiliate marketer and have affiliate links that would be of interest to my readers you can further monetize your efforts. There is even a directory of ScratchBack users that you can use to locate sites that cater to your target audience. I would love to hear about any other ideas you might have in using this great tool so leave me a comment.
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