Be Cautious of the Blogging Advice You Follow
The internet can help us in ways we never imagined. It contains more information than previous generations had access to in several lifetimes combined. But it has its share of problems, though. And that includes blogging tips. Be cautious of the blogging advice you follow.
By the way, be cautious of all advice, including advice taken from this website. That doesn't mean I will try to deceive you. Not at all. However, I may have written something from an earlier time that may no longer be relevant, or I wasn't as experienced as I am now.
I do try to weed out my site of older, less-relevant content, though!
My goal with this website has always been to provide value. But sometimes the value you provide is based on the information you had at the time. When situations change, the older content becomes stale. The good news is search engines usually account for this situation by ranking the newer material as priority (most of the time.)
You can find valuable content and I strive to provide that on my website. Other bloggers are committed to that, as well. But there is also a lot of junk out there. That is one of the motivations for creating this website. It to help you know what oppornities have a chance of making you decent money.
Making money online is actually easy, if you only want to make a few cents or dollar here and there. I can show you how to do that right now. But I won't. Because, honestly, it's a waste of time. Why learn how to make pennies when you can spend your time on more productive items like earning hundreds of dollars or even thousands. And yes, I earn thousands of dollars online in various ways, just in case you are wondering.
Making Good Money Online
To make a decent amount of money online is not easy. Don't let anyone try to convince you that it is easy. Ask yourself this question - if it were easy, wouldn't we all be millionaires?
Never forget this one tenet of earning money!
If you are willing to accept that making good money online is hard and takes work, then you can make it happen. Knowing this is one of the first ingredients to making this work!
Tips for Following Online Advice
The following tips will help you navigate the tricky terrain of online money-making programs that claim to help you make money online. When you learn these tips, you'll waste less time on programs that have little chance of helping you succeed. You'll concentrate on the programs (coupled with hard work) that can make a difference in your life.
Tip #1 - Forget About Swagbucks
Swagbucks is a legitimate membership company that pays people to participate in viewing advertising. I've got nothing against the company. It's an interesting concept where they pay members (usually pennies) to view videos or participate in other meaningless activities. While it is not a scam, it isn't going to make you any money that can help you give up your 9-to-5.
Not even close!
Why do I mention Swagbucks? Because you'll likely see it mentioned on many blogs or websites offering advice on how to make money. These bloggers often make it seem as though it's the bees knees of making money. These bloggers are motivated to include sites like swagbucks in an attempt to boost their website rankings.
Think about that motivation - they are offering you bad advice to try and rig the search engines to send traffic to their website. They know it's bad advice because I am willing to bet a good sum of money that if you ask them if they use sites like Swagbucks to make money, they will tell you they don't - if they are willing to answer honestly.
They know it's a waste of time, yet they are advising you to sign up for these sites to make money. What's worse is the motivation behind these bloggers pumping up sites like Swagbucks is to get you to sign up and pay for the bloggers' services. These services will probably advise you to do the same, i.e., tout the benefits of Swagbucks and the like to your website visitors, so that you can get traffic. Then, you'll have your readers sign up for those bloggers' services, which you'll receive a commission. The cycle goes on and on...
I checked this GetPaidBootCamp.com website to see if I had ever written anything advising visitors to sign up for Swagbucks, or other sites like it. So far, I haven't found anything.
There are other sites like Swagbucks. I only chose Swagbucks because most of the advice I see online recommends them as their as a top choice. Others include InboxDollars.com, MyPoints.com, and CashCrate.com. You'll find plenty of others if you do a search.
Most of these websites are legit - it's just that you have to spend a lot of time to make very little money. It's a waste of time and your your time will be better spent working on business models that can help you earn real money.
Tip # 2 - Surveys Can Make You Money, But...
Okay, so this one appears to have more potential for making money. Maybe. But there are some factors to consider when exploring this.
Don't believe the hype that you'll make hundreds of dollars in no time flat. Survey companies do pay, but they often don't release enough surveys that could amount to any substantial earnings.
Further, survey companies have methods for detecting whether people fill in fake answers just to get through the surveys (and collect the points or cash). Sometimes, survey providers will ask you to fill out a qualifying survey that they don't pay. It doesn't take very long to fill out but some of the questions may be seeded.
When they send you the paid survey, you may find that they ask you a few of the same questions as the qualifying survey. Often, people who just fill in any response won't remember how they responded earlier.
The survey companies have other methods of checking for fake answers. They are likely to ban you if you are participate in these actions.
Another issue with surveys is you are often asked for significantly personal questions. Survey companies are essentially marketing firms that provide information to companies about you. They want to know as much as they can about you. Your spending habits, the type of people you like to date, what you browsing preferences are, and a host of other personal information.
Often, you agree (usually unknowningly via a Terms of Service clause) that the companies can use the information for marketing purposes, including selling your information. This provision means that they can sell the information to anyone willing to pay, technically.
That includes scammers and hackers.
To make any decent money with survey companies, you'll have to spend a lot of time on not-so-great surveys that pay little in the beginning. This is by design.
They are trying to weed out the people who only want to do it for the quick buck. Over time, if you stick with survey companies, you will start to see some better paying opportunities.
The biggest problem is there is not consistency.
A way around this problem is to join multiple survey companies. But don't forget. That just means more opportunities for companies to sell your information to just about anyone.
Tip #3 - Making Money with Micro Task Websites - NOT!
Sites like Amazon Mechanical Turk may be okay if you live in a country with a low cost of living. However, in the United States, there ain't no such thing. It's expensive to live here. Therefore, you decide to partake in these micro task websites, you're going to spend a lot of time for very little money. And I mean a pittance! It's not exciting work by any stretch of the imagination. It's drudgery.
Maybe one of my readers will respond saying that they make a lot of money on these websites. My response will be in the form of a question - where do you live? They'll probably tell me a place like Vietnam or India. Although, India's cost of living has been creeping up. Just saying...
If you decide to pursue this, please don't say I didn't warn you.
Tip #4 - Content Mills - Stay Away!
A content mill is a service that offers its clients extremely low prices for content produced. Of course, the content produced isn't likely to be very good. The reason is that good writers wouldn't be caught dead writing for theses websites.
To be sure, some beginner writers may get their start on content mills. But once they get better, they're gone. It's simple economics, really.
Can you make money on content mills? Maybe, but it's usually soul-sucking work and you have to write a lot of content to scrape up a few dollars. And that doesn't include the many revisions that you may have to go through with overly aggressive editors. All for pennies per word!
What topics do you write about? I hope you like to write about plumbing and septic tanks and other fun stuff like that. Because that is usually what is available from the pool of topics after everyone else has picked all the good topics. Once in a while you may get lucky and get an article with a decent topic.
Although I don't recommend content mills, some of the better ones (if there ever could be ones that are better) do provide a valuable service to stay-at-home moms or dads. These are people that want to earn a bit of extra money but don't want to spend a lot of time searching for work online. Some of these content mills have plenty of work, and even if they don't pay well (they don't!) the workers always have a constant flow of work.
However, if you are looking to make a living with content mills in countries like the United States, here is my advice to you:
Tip #5 - I am Lukewarm on Paid Blog Posts
If you have an established blog, you are likely to be approached by bloggers asking you to write a blog post that promotes their products. They will pay you. Depending on how popular your website is, they may even pay you some decent cash to list this promotional post.
Do you go for it? That depends on whether you want to risk your reputation. Think about the websites you visit. How often do you take time to read adversarials? I know I don't. That's essentially what these types of posts are. And they will be littered on your website. Sure, you'll receive some money for having them listed. But is it worth it to take a hit on your reuptations?
If you want to get a feel for whether these are effective, browse some influential websites. How often do you see paid posts?
Don't confuse a paid blog post with affiliate links, by the way. They are different, although some similarities exist (see next tip). Most influential bloggers are influential for a reason. They don't use techniques that could wreck their reputations.
If you are going to consider paid blogs and you have a decent traffic-flowing website, you set the terms. Don't let them dictate the terms to you. It shouldn't be difficult, either, as you are in the catbird seat. Simply move on if they don't agree. Trust me! There are better ways to make money.
Tip #6 - I Love Affiliate Marketing But with the Following Caveats
If you are unfamiliar with affiliate marketing, it also goes by the name of referral marketing (okay, there can be differences here sometimes, but let's not worry about that!) When you refer people to a vendor's website and those people make a purchase, the vendor will pay you a commission on the sale. That is affiliate marketing in a nutshell.
Sounds like a decent way to make money, no? It is. But you have to do it right. I'll say that again. You have to do it right. No, seriously! You really have to get this right. Otherwise, it's not much different than paid blog posts.
Most affiliates think that just because the business model is easy, they'll make thousands of dollars in a few weeks. It's possible for that to happen, but not likely. Even if you start to make decent money in the beginning, it will be tempered when Google figures out your site is nothing more than a thin affiliate website. It doesn't like that!
A thin affiliate website is one that is created for the sole purpose of collecting commissions from affilaite sales. Every page will have affiliate links. Suffice it to say, Google and other search engines will penalize these sites over time.
So how do you do affiliate marketing right? You do so by providing value. Make sure the companies you associate with are ones you'd want to buy from yourself. If you aren't, then you'll be peddling junk. Reputation is everything in blogging. Build a solid foundation from the start and it is something that can last for years. It only takes a few moments to blow it, though. And it's much harder to rebuild!
Another area of concern with affiliate marketing is selling non-relevant products. Have you ever come across a website and noticed something seems woefully out of place? Often it's products that have nothing to do with the website topics. Don't do that. Keep your affiliate offers highly relevant. Period.
I've seen too much advice about affiliate marketing stating that all you need to do is write a lot of content. Make that content keyword-focused and watch your traffic explode. There is some truth to this advice and yes, it can work. However, I am not sure if it is sustainable. Here's why.
Do we really need yet another blog post explaining how to change a toilet bowl flusher? How many tutorials on the topic exist now? Why do you believe that adding yet another tutorial on the topic will add value? Will it? Why?
I did a search in Google for videos on the topic and found thousands. Further, several of the videos are from companies like Home Depot. If a website visitor saw a video from home depot or Lowe's on a topic they are hoping learn about, what do you think are the chances they will select your website or video?
What if instead, you created a blog post about the longest-lasting toilet bowl flapper or flusher, whatever you want to call it? Or you describe toilet bowl products that can withstand the harsh effects of hard water?
When I searched for this topic, I found plenty of videos on how to remove hard water stains in a toilet bowl but few about how to choose a toilet bowl flusher that could withstand the effects of hard water. Does a product like that exist? I have no idea. But what if it did and no one was talking about it? Do you see a potential opportunity there?
Always add value with your affiliate sales and you'll build a solid, long-term business.
