My PPC Advertising dot Info

Hello to all my dear readers and visitors! Yes, it's me, Tiberius Burciu, the owner of this blog and I'm back:) You may wonder where I've been till now? Just returned from a trip to Las Vegas, where I threw away some cash at a few casinos and wandered on the big boulevards, in a luxurious Hummer limousine...Ok, it wasn't like that, I was just kidding;) I'm not a millionaire so I can't say I can afford such a lifestyle.

Now seriously, the reason why you haven't seen any new posts on my blog lately, was that I had to study for some exams ( I've mentioned that I have 4 this session in the last article I wrote, 3 days ago ). 3 are already over and I can say I'm satisfied with the results ( I'm not the kind of person to chase high marks, so any number starting from 7 ( D ) it's ok for me :). One of the recent exams that I've passed was at Law, where I was able to secure a 10 ( A ). The other 2 where at Negotiation and Management ( I got a 9 ( B ) at Management and a 7 ( D ), at Negotiation ). There's one more left, at Marketing and once I'm finished with this, the session is over:D ( finally! ).

Don't want to go too much off-topic however, as I will be talking about a new money making opportunity today. So, here it is..

AffiliateBot is an website similar to CJ ( Commission Junction - this site was presented by me in a separate article, which can be found in the "Make Money With.." category from the "Browse by category" menu, located on the right sidebar ). But if you don't know how a site like this can help you make some money with your blog or website and if you don't have time to browse through my categories, I will tell you more about in just a second. So, what you have to do to start earning cash?

First of all, you need a blog or a website ( kinda obvious, isn't it ? ). It doesn't matter either it's a big or a small one, a well-trafficked or an average-trafficked one, or if it's new or old. What it does matter is to own it and make sure other people know about it ( you will need to drive some traffic to it, since you want to make money ). If you have one of these, then you can go to step 2: signing up for AffiliateBot. The whole process is very easy. All you have to do is to go to the main page of the site and click on the "Join now" orange button, from the "Affiliates" column ( the button is located to the bottom of the main page and it's very easy to see. You can't miss it :).

Once you've clicked that button, you'll go to a sign up page, where you have to type in your email, the password you want to use for you new account ( has to be inserted twice ) and the country you're from. After that, you only have 2 more steps to go ( one of them being to confirm your membership ). Then, when you're a confirmed member, you will be able to complete your profile, add the websites/blogs that you own and with which you want to make money and also set how would you like to be paid ( via check or PayPal ( if you don't have a PP account yet, you can get one free, by clicking here ). The minimum amount of money which you can withdraw, either by check or PayPal, is $50. The maximum amount is the one you set :) ( meaning $100, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000 etc - with the condition of earning that much, of course ). There's one thing you should know, if you set your payment method to be PayPal: you MUST verify your PP email address, before receiving any money.

How to do this? Simple: just insert your PP email address in the field where you're asked to insert it ( in your "Payment Settings" sub-menu, from the "Account" menu of your account ) and you will get a message saying that it has to be verified and that a verification link was sent to your current email address ( the one with which you've signed up ). Once you receive that link via email, click it ( yes, you have to click it..and don't worry, nothing bad will happen :). After clicking the link, you will go to a confirmation page where you'll see a message stating that the email has been verified. That's it! From now on, you will be able to receive money into your PayPal account, without any problems.

If you can't sign up for a PP account ( therefore being unable to receive money this way ), select the check option. The minimum sum to withdraw is the same ( $50 ). NOTE: Be sure to give your real home address and country, as you may not receive any checks, should you insert any fictitious or false address.

Step 3 ( and the last one ) is to go and browse the advertisers' database of the AffiliateBot website, to find one which will fit your tastes or blog's topic. Once you have found it, just select the links or banners you want to use to promote his services/products and place them on your site/blog. Now, every time a visitor goes to the advertiser's website, e-store, e-mall etc and buys something, you will get a commission. After you reach the minimum amount of money for withdraw, you'll get paid. Easy, isn't it?

If you're interested in making money with AffiliateBot, then feel free to sign up for a free publisher account, anytime, by clicking the banner below. Thank you:)

We all know how important the traffic is for our sites or blogs. We would do anything we could, just to improve it. Most people are saying that content is the king, which is true. But what about if you don't generate any kind of traffic, so it can be seen? Isn't that great content of yours becoming useless? Who would read it, except of you? On the other hand, if your website/blog is trafficked well, then whatever you're writing or you're offering on it, becomes a source of information for the visitors, who will return the following days, weeks or even months, to check for updates.

It's not hard to start receiving visitors to a site or blog, but it isn't easy either. Why I'm saying that? Because if you already have a high advertising budget, then you're able to promote it better, this way managing to attract a larger number of people to see it. But if you're just starting on the internet and you can't afford spending big amounts of cash on advertising, then it may a bit hard for you to drive the traffic you need to your site/blog.

Fortunately, there are lots of advertising methods and companies this days, which can help you on this issue. However, you have to be careful which of these are right for you and if they will really want to give you a hand, or just rip you off. The scammers in the advertising industry ( there are scammers here too, as anywhere on the internet ) would do anything they can just to steal as much money from you as they can, without even giving you any help at all.

With this mind, I've managed to put together a list of things you should consider, when looking for a way to promote a site or blog that you own, or you're affiliated with:

1. While usually paid advertising websites work better than the free ones, don't forget to check this ones too. Because some times, a free site can be more efficient than a paid one. Also, check for some free submission softwares too, if you'd like to save time.

2. Do not throw away your cash on information that you could have gotten for free. Some advertising agencies or websites will try to sell you "tips" on how to obtain better search engine rankings or how to increase your website's traffic for example, for a large amount of money. Before doing anything that you may regret in the future, think twice and do some researches. If you're lucky, you may find those much needed information for free, on article directories or ezines, for example.

3. Don't believe promises that are too good to be true. Why? It's somehow obvious: most of the time, are just that: too good to be true. Avoid the individuals or companies who are telling you that they are the best and they can help you. Anyone is free to say that, but not anyone is actually the way they claim they are.

4. If something works poorly, then it's time to say goodbye and move to better things. Once you saw that one of your techniques, strategies or methods aren't working anymore and your traffic is decreasing or stagnates, get rid of it right away. Then try to apply the other techniques which worked and are still working.

5. Learn to do things by yourself and fast. I'm not telling you to rush in doing something stupid, but what I want to say is that you have to learn to apply all the strategies you've learned fast, if you want to see results sooner, than later.Also, you can't just ask somebody to do the work for you every time you need it to be done..this is why it's important to learn to do things by yourself, as no one will be holding your hand for life, telling you what to do. Once you've learned the methods of driving traffic to your site or blog, you won't even need someone to tell you what must be done. You'll know it yourself:)

6. Make the most out of your advertising budget. If you want your website to be popular and successful, then you have to spend your promotion money wisely.

7. The look and feel of your website/blog. This 2 factors are determining, when it comes to driving traffic to it. A professionally designed, easy to navigate and uncluttered site is more likely to attract lots of visitors, than one which is hard to navigate or it has too much content and advertising mixed together..

8. Ask someone to review your site or blog. Tell then to give you their honest opinions on how are they seeing it. Be prepared to receive some negative comments too, if the site isn't looking or responding too good. This kind of comments can prove to be very helpful and will help you to change what has to be changed.

9. Check those persons or companies which are offering you their services. Do not fall for their "too good to be true" offers, as they don't care about you, your site or your traffic. The only thing they care is to benefit from you. So be careful to whom you're addressing to, when you want to start and advertising campaign.

I think that there are more tips to remember and tricks to avoid, than the ones I've already mentioned, but this are some of the most important. So, next time you're trying to advertise your website or blog, do remember about what I've told you today..it may prove helpful:) Take care!

First of all, I'd like to apologize for not posting an article yesterday, but currently I'm quite busy, both online and in real life. And especially in the real life ( you know, the one where interact with real people, eat real food, drink real water, sodas etc :), because I have some exams to pass ( it's the winter session here in Romania, at the university I study ). So, I have to be prepared for all of them. It are just 4, but still can't say I'm too relaxed.

Now, let's concentrate to today's article, as I don't want to bore you with my busy schedule:). As you've probably noticed already, I will be talking about affiliate marketing..again. It shouldn't be a surprise for any of you, because I've discussed many times about this topic. And since I'm studying marketing myself, it makes sense to tell you new information about it, every time I have the opportunity to do it.

By now, you've heard many times people talking on how they're making money online, either with their blogs or websites. It doesn't matter how much they're earning: just $50 or even up to $50,000/month, the idea is they've managed to do it. But you're probably wondering how is this possible? Well, most of them are affiliate marketers. Still don't know what's an affiliate marketer? He/she is a person who promotes and sells other person's/company's products or services and receives a commission for doing so, while helping the respective individual or company to spread the word about a certain product or service.

But in order to be a successful affiliate marketer and to earn some serious cash out of this, you have to know a couple of important things about affiliate marketing. Let's see which it are:

1. The target market. Yes, this is the first important aspect on our list. And it's obvious why. If you want to succeed in affiliate marketing, then you have to be sure that you're selling the right products to the right audience. Imagine trying to sell a webhosting package to an audience which definitely doesn't needs it, but it's looking for software downloads, for example..Would they be interested in your offer? Maybe very few ( or none ). This will result in little to no sales and a very small profit ( or nothing at all ).

2. The quality of your products or services. Another important thing to think at. If you have high-quality products and services, then your customers would want to return to your website and order again and again, in the future. On the other hand, if the products/services you recommend to others suck, then you'll probably make very few sales ( if you're lucky enough ). Once again, you will not be able to make any serious income.

3. The sales letter. A good sales letter can make the difference between being successful or just another affiliate marketer who have failed in this field. This is why it's important to check the sales letters of the products or services which you recommend ( if there are any ). If you consider this are good and can convince a potential customer to buy the service/product from you, then go ahead and use them...if not, try to create ones yourself ( if you can't do them yourself, then ask someone you know and has some experience in creating sales letters, to create them for you ).

4. Promotional materials and methods. Every money making opportunity for which you sign up this days, has some promotional materials and methods available for its affiliates, so they can easily promote it. Either it's just an affiliate link or an entire range of other promotional methods, they must be present in your member's area.

5. Profitability. This is the last ( but not the least ) thing you should consider when signing up as an affiliate for a certain program. You have to know how much you will be paid for the efforts you put in promoting the respective product or service? How big your commissions are? Usually, a higher commission is a great motivation for anyone, and you'd want to do your best to ensure you'll manage to get as much sales as possible, so you can earn more money.

I'm sure there are a few more aspects at which you should think at, when signing up as an affiliate marketer, but the 5 mentioned above are the most important ones. If this are ok, then it means you're on the right way to making your first money online:) Good luck!

Do you like T shirts? Well, I think everybody loves to wear them, especially in the summer time, when the weather becomes really hot. Nowadays, there are lots of models to choose from and lots of stores to visit, so we don't have to just go and buy the first T shirt we see, even though we may not like it. Shoppings can be done either offline, at your favorite shop, or you can opt for an online store, such as WholesaleDirectUSA, which sells a wide range of products, such as blank t-shirts or wholesale urban wear ( for the guys who like hip hop or rap :).

Being a person who really likes to "wander" around on the internet, visiting various types of online stores ( from the ones which sell computers, mobiles, etc to those which sell clothing ), I thought to see what this particular website has to offer me. As I already mentioned, they have lots of t-shirts for sale. I'm sure that if I were to start browsing a little more closer, I would find a right one for me too. Anyone who would like to buy some cheap t-shirts, should visit this e-store. Oh, did I said "cheap t-shirts"? Yes, because it is true. Here you can buy how many you want, with prices starting from just $1.5, $1.84, $2 etc, depending on the size of the t-shirt, color and the category from which you have selected it.

Either you're a girl or a guy, or you'd like a certain type of t-shirt having a certain type of color, you will find the right one for you at WholesaleDirectUSA.com. Let me clear a thing for you: this e-store is not a place to go if you're thinking yourself a star and you'd mind buying a simple t-shirt which may or may not have a logo or some text printed on it or if it's not from a company such as Gucci or Armani. This is a wholesale store: you buy cheap and good quality clothes for you to wear them anytime, not just at a fancy millionaire's party. So, if you do have something against this place, then don't visit it:)

On the other hand, if you're the kind of person who's wondering where he/she can find some nice t-shirts and would like to buy a bunch of them for cheap, then this is the right e-store for you. But that's not all. This guys aren't selling just tees. They also sell hoodies, sport shirts, thermal shirts, golf and polo shirts and many more. There has to be something you may like there, so why not to check it out?

Anytime you'd like to get yourself a new tee or hoodie, don't forget about WholesaleDirectUSA.com, your faithful online store for cheap clothes:)

I believe that any of you have some photos on your computer, camera, CDs, phone etc. And I think you're also sharing them with your friends and family very often ( at least, this is what I do: every time I take some new "shots", I quickly save them on my hard-drive and then send it to all my friends, so they can view them too ). Now, let me ask you how are you actually sharing them? Here's how I do it: either by attaching them to an email, sending them through an MMS ( via my mobile phone ), burning them on a CD, via Yahoo Messenger ( most preferred method )..or simply uploading them on photo sharing sites.

If you haven't heard of photo sharing websites till now, then you've probably lived under a rock ( no hard feelings, it's just an expression :). There are dozens of sites like this on the internet nowadays and it can be pretty hard to decide to which one of them will you upload all the photos you have. Why? Because all of them have appealing features, such as more storage space, more ways to share your photos via external links, widgets etc..or the opportunity of making money.

Yes, you've heard that right. I said: "the opportunity of making money." And I wasn't talking about the opportunity of those sites to make money only..but also about YOURS too. How is that possible? The concept behind this is pretty simple: the more members a site like this has, the more photos will be uploaded and the more traffic will be generated. And because the sites are monetized ( usually with Google Adsense ads ), they will generate a nice income. Since you're a member and you're helping them make money and offer a nice service like this to others too, you're getting paid. How much? Would be hard to say, as it depends on how much money the owners make, how many members are on the site, how much traffic it received etc. But you can earn a couple of dollars every month ( you won't quit your 9-5 job this way, but you'll probably have enough money to go to a movie :). And if you are a really active and popular member and you're promoting your profile like mad, you will have the chance of earning more money.

And this is pretty much the "story" of the site I would like to show you today. It is called Photrade and it's a place where you can upload all your favorite photos and also earn some "cocos" ( that's the term I use for money :). Here's how to get started:

First of all, you have to know something: the membership is available by invite-only. So unless you know someone who's a member already and who can send you such an invite, you can't join ( they're still in BETA and I think this is why they've implemented such a system ). Every member has the right to send no more than 3 invites ( once you've sent them all, that's it..). And the most important thing, besides earning money is the price of the membership: $0 ( that's ZERO dollars ! ). Yup, you don't have to pay any fees..no monthly, annually or other types of fees.

Cool, you've received an invite and signed up..Now what? Oh, you DO want to make money, don't you:)? Listen closely: go and update your profile. Upload a photo of yourself, write few words about you, what are your interests and what's the URL of your site or blog..if you have any ( nice, some free advertising too :). Once this step is completed, start uploading and sharing photos like mad! As I've already mentioned above, the more popular you are, the more money you may earn ( and also the fame..and the rest :). If just sharing the photos isn't enough for you, then hear this: you'll also get paid every time someone will buy one of your "masterpieces" ( I mean photos :). There you have it! One free, easy and fun way to start making money online..and you don't even need a blog or site for this.

Oh, I almost forgot: you can cash out once you've reached $15, via PayPal. To find out more about Photrade and to start sharing your photos with your friends ( also making a profit ), then feel free to visit the official site at www.photrade.com.

PS: I've used all my invites, but you can talk to Querblogger or Rome ( two of my fellow bloggers ) and probably they may be able to give you one. Don't forget to ask them nicely:)

As I'm always searching for new ways to make money online, it happened to find a website called BizReef. The good thing about is that you don't have to own a site or blog to join it, because such things are not required here. It is not a pay per click advertising network, nor a get paid to write sponsored reviews either. If you're curious to find out how you can start earning money with BizReef, without the need of a site or blog, I will tell you in just a couple of seconds.

A long time ago, when this blog was still "young" and was on a Blogspot subdomain, I wrote a post about a freelancing website, named ScriptLance, where you can sign up for free and make money by taking part to various projects. More exactly, what do you have to do? Here are the steps: first of all, in order to take part at any project or make any money, you need to get an account. Without it, you can't do anything on that site, apart of just visiting it as a simple guest. Once you become a member ( for free ), you're entitled to bid for any of the open projects listed there.

Now, you know that usually bidding means offering a sum of money to someone, for a product or service, higher than the previous interested buyer. But here, at ScriptLance ( or at BizReef, as this are both freelancing sites ), you don't have to buy anything. Even though you're bidding for a certain project, this doesn't mean you're going to buy it. Instead, if you bid just the right price, you may be lucky and the project owner may choose you for completing it. After accepting to work with the respective client, you must make sure you're going to do your job in the time frame mentioned before accepting the job. So, for example, if you agreed to do a web designing job in 14 days, then you better be ready before the time runs out. Nothing bad will happen to you, but the client who have hired you may think that you're not serious and you're wasting his time, so he may want to cancel any further negotiations and not even pay you, if you delivered his website in a month, instead of 2 weeks.

If everything went well and the project owner is happy with your work, then he will pay you the amount you've asked him ( it can be 100, 200, 500, 1000 bucks etc, depending on how complex the project is ). Usually payments are done via PayPal, EGold, Check, MoneyBookers ( for ScriptLance ) and Google Checkout ( at BizReef ).

I've talked about SL and the steps you need to take, if you want to earn money with a freelancing website. But haven't mentioned anything about BizReef, except for the fact it's similar to SL. So let me tell you a few things about it. Obviously, if you're a freelancer and want to make money, you need to sign up first. Once you're done with this step, you need to complete your freelancer profile and let people know what you can do. For example, if you're a good writer, then you can offer your potential clients services such as article writing, article rewriting, fictional or non-fictional writing etc. If you're a good website designer, then you can offer various designing services. I think you got the picture here;)

After you're chosen to complete a project ( either after bidding on one or after being picked by a client, without any bidding ), you will have to complete it. Once it's done and everyone is happy, then you're going to get paid, according to the deal made with the client. Payments are made via PayPal or Google Checkout.

If you're interested to see how a project looks like, then feel free to click here ( by the way, I'm not involved in that project, nor you have any obligation to accept it or sign up for BizReef..it's just an example :). So, if you think you're good at writing articles or designing sites, for example and would like to earn some extra cash ( without the need of a blog or site ), then you can go to BizReef.com and sign up for a free freelancer account..or if you need to hire a freelancer, then sign up for a free client account. Good luck!

As you may know, blogging is not just about having a cool design or lots of sponsors to support you. It's also about the content you write, how attractive this is and how many people like it. Because if they do, they will return to your blog on a daily basis, or if they don't have enough time, will subscribe to your RSS feed, so to be sure that they will get the latest articles you produce. But if you seem not to care about how you think and write you articles, or if your just blogging for the sake of money, then it's very likely to drive away your visitors and readers, as they don't like this kind of stuffs. Sooner or later, you will have very few subscribers ( or none ) and the traffic to your blog may decrease. As you can see, it really matters what are you writing and especially how well.

That's what I want to talk about: how well-written are your blog articles? Let's face it: we're bloggers from every corner of the world, speaking languages such as German, Romanian, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Dutch etc and English ( the language in which most blogs are written ) is not our native language. So it's kinda normal to make some spelling or grammar mistakes. Now, I'm not talking about one mistake at every 2 words, but at one or 2 per article. Whilst it's not a tragedy to make this mistakes ( because, as I've said, English is not our native language ), overdoing it can cause us some problems.

The visitors and readers of our blogs will tend to overlook the small mistakes we make, if this are very rare or they know that we're from non-English speaking countries. But what will they do, if they see a whole article full of "bugs" and "glitches"? This will probably annoy them a lot and will eventually force them to leave the blogs they read ( and never return ). I know that, because I tend to do the same. I'm not mean, but I don't like to bang my head against the PC's monitor, trying to understand what a blogger says, in a broken English...

So, how can a guy like me and you can improve his writing skills? Here are 2 possibilities:

1. Attending some English classes or
2. Using Whitesmoke

You're probably wondering what Whitesmoke is? Any kind of anti-tobacco spray, or something?
Well, no. Even though its name may make you think of smoking and cigars, it's not that..Instead, it is a computer software which will help you improve your writing skills. It is recommended to be used not only by you, as an individual, at home, but also by business alike. They neede it too. Below is a list with the things for which this software is good:

- Letter Writing
- Business Writing
- Legal Writing
- Blogging
- Creative Writing
.. and more

And here's how it can help you: the software will perform:
- Grammar Check
- Punctuation Check
- Spell Check
- Proofreading and Editing
- Text Enrichment
and it also has an English Dictionary and a Thesaurus of Synonyms, very useful when you are stuck and don't know how to write or translate a word for sure.

Of course, there are more features that this software has and which can't be all mentioned here, as this post would become too long. Not to mention that it got some awards and it is highly appreciated by the customers who have used it so far..If you too want to have this all-in-one software, I would like to recommend you visiting the official WhiteSmoke website, to find out more about it. Should you find it useful, then you can order one copy:) It's $79.95 ( for the General Use version ). Not that cheap, but a good investment for anyone looking to improve his writing skills;). To get your hands on one of the Whitesmoke's versions, please click the banner below..Thank you!

A couple of months ago I've mentioned about Criteo. If you don't know what this is, you can read the article about it here. But just in case you don't feel the need of clicking that link, here's a short description of this service: with Criteo you can drive traffic to your blog and also make some money at the same time, and all this for free. That's right: you don't have to pay anything to sign up for a Criteo account. Once you're a member, you can install a widget on your blog ( similar to one from BlogRush ), which is called "Auto Roll" and start driving free traffic. The widget is easy to install and is highly customizable, so it will fit your blog's template. If driving free traffic to your own blog is not enough, then you may want to earn some cash too. How can you do that? By placing some PPC ads. Every time someone will click them, you'll earn money. It's that simple..

Now, why would I want to talk about Criteo once again? Wasn't enough the first time? Yes, it was enough and I believe that those of you who have seen the first article about this service, you understood what's about. But this time I'll be talking about something else..A brand-new way of making money with Criteo: the Tag Cloud. If you want to find out more about it, then please read on..

I was checking my email inbox today, when I saw an email from the above mentioned website. Here's what they say:

"Cher utilisateur,

Tout d’abord, nous tenons à vous remercier pour votre participation active et votre confiance ! Grâce à vous, plus de 12 000 blogueurs utilisent un widget Criteo.

Vouz avez participé à la BETA de Criteo Ads. Nous avons tenu compte de vos remarques et suggestions.

Nous sommes donc heureux de vous annoncer le lancement de notre nouveau widget: Criteo Cloud

Nous espérons que ce nouveau widget vous séduira et qu’il répondra à vos attentes.

Nous vous souhaitons beaucoup de succès en 2008 !

Laurence & Peter,
de la part de toute l’équipe Criteo"

You see, that's the "fun part": it's written in French, because the Criteo Company is from France:) Whilst I know what they're saying, I will have to translate it for the rest of you who probably don't speak French ( hey, I'm not an expert either, even though I've studied this language for 10 years ( since I was in the 2nd grade and untill I've graduated the high school..that's the 12th grade :), so if I make any mistakes, don't kill me, ok? :). Here it goes:

"Dear user,

We would like to thank you for your active participation and confidence! Thanks to you, more than 12,000 bloggers are now using a Criteo widget.

You have participated at the BETA version of Criteo Ads. We've listened to all your remarks and suggestions.

So now we're happy to announce the launch of our new widget: Criteo Cloud.

We hope that you'll like this new widget and find it useful.

We wish you lots of success in 2008!

Laurence & Peter,
in the name of all Criteo team"

So, more exactly, how will you make money with their new widget? It's simple: once you become a member of Criteo, you will be able to create a cloud with keywords related to a certain category ( for example "Internet" ). After that, you will have to install it on your blog. And once you're done with this step too, you will start earning money every time one of your visitors clicks the keywords that appear in the Tag Cloud. It's basically similar to pay per click ads, the only difference being that there won't be any text ads inside the cloud, but only keywords ( such as "make money online", for example ).

For now though, this widget is in BETA and it's only available to blogs that are written in French. But the guys from Criteo are promising that they will make this service available worldwide very soon..which is a good news, because we'll all be able to make some money with it this way too ( not just those lucky French people out there :). Untill then, we'll have to wait..

Anyway, if you're interested to test-drive the Criteo Cloud ( or "nuage" in French ), you're free to sign up for an account at www.criteo.com. Have fun!

UPDATE: I almost forgot to tell you: those who will test-drive the Criteo Cloud will have the chance of winning 1000 Euros/week. That's right: every week, one lucky publisher will be drawn at their lottery and will win money! All you have to do to enter the contest, is to simply install a Tag Cloud on your blog..that's it! Good luck!

Ever heard of Marketing Pond? If you did, or if you're a member of this website already, then you know what's about: a site which is offering you multiple sources of FREE monthly income. Now, I'm not talking about scam programs or any other types of hypes, promising you to earn thousands of dollars per day, for paying a certain fee. I'm talking about free programs, such as paid to click websites, paid to complete offers, paid to take surveys etc, which can bring you a good monthly income, without having to pay anything for joining them. All you have to do is to get your own free Marketing Pond account, sign up for the programs recommended in the members area and promote your referral link, in order to sign others and earn even more.

If you're the kind of person how's expecting to earn a bunch of cash from the above mentioned programs, without doing any work and without promoting the referral link, then I think this opportunity is not for you. Why I say that? You see, all this money making opportunities listed at Marketing Pond or at Free Money Team won't make you rich. This are programs where you'll earn 1 cent per click or a few bucks per survey, this is why getting as much referrals as possible is important, if you're really serious about earning any significant income. Once you do this, you'll see that the efforts you put in signing up and building a downline, are paying off.

Now, let me tell you few things about Free Money Team, the new money making opportunity that I have stumbled upon a couple of days ago, while reading a blog called "I Make Money on Facebook". As I've already mentioned when talking about Marketing Pond, this program is similar to it. All you have to do to start earning some free money with FMT ( Free Money Team ), is to sign up for a free account, log in to your members area and join all the programs which are recommended there. No need to worry, as all the websites you'll be joining have no membership fees and all are paying. Also, don't forget to join the programs which are listed in the "Get free traffic" section of the Free Money Team website. You have to do this, in order to let other people know about this opportunity and get as ,many referrals as possible. The more you manage to sign up under you, the more income you'll make every month.

It may not mean too much for you in the beginning, when you'll earn a cent here or a buck there, but as the time will pass and you'll be getting more referrals, all those cents and bucks will eventually add up and you'll make a more serious income. Also, some of you may think that by joining this kind of programs, you'll only waste your time and won't be making enough money to quit your day job. Well, this money making opportunities aren't meant to make you rich, but rather to give some extra cash, which may be helpful. Plus, I believe that this are one of the most serious and honest ways of starting to make money online. So, forget about all those scams out there, which are made only to waste your time and money and join a program that at least has the possibility to bring you some extra money in you pocket ( or PayPal account ) every month, by doing simple things as clicking ads or completing surveys and having fun.

Any time you wish to join Free Money Team, your free to do it. You won't have to pay any membership fees for joining this website or for joining any of the opportunities listed inside the members area, as they are all free. Registration is easy and fast and you'll be able to start making some money as soon as you are a member. I wish you good luck!

Online backgammon is one of the ways with the help of which you may want to relax a bit, after a hard day of blogging or work. Of course, there are several other types of games you may play online, but if you really are a fan of backgammons, then I believe you're going to be interested in the site I'll be talking about in the following lines.

Gammon-Fortune is just the right place for any gammons fan. Here, he can play backgammon, have some fun and also participate in online competitions, for a chance to win real money. If you're the type of player who's only doing this for fun, then you definitely need to see this place. You're going to ask me: "What can I find at this website?" Believe me, you'll find lots of interesting things to see, such as information about the website, information about backgammons ( for rookie players especially, as they may want to know more before signing up and start playing ), tournaments, downloads and also the chance of becoming an affiliate and earning some money from your favorite website and game.

You don't have to worry about how easy will you be able to navigate this backgammon online website, as the navigation menu is extremely user-friendly and easy to use. All the links to the pages of this website are placed in a very visible spot, above the template and are very accessible. The overall design of the site is very professional and you can clearly see how the owner took time to come up with the best, cleanest and wonderful template he could come up with. You won't find any pesky ads or annoying pop-ups flying around the site or crashing your browser, as this site isn't monetized with that kind of stuffs ( actually, haven't seen any ads at all! ). Everything is kept nice and simple, yet it is pretty attractive, especially for you, as a fan of backgammons.

So, if you're looking for a place to play your favorite game, then you can go to Gammon-Fortune.com and sign up. Good luck!

After taking a good luck at some of my first blog posts and making sure that I haven't talked about AdLeaf already, I've decided that it's time to do this know. If you wonder "What's AdLeaf?", I will tell you right away. It is not a money making opportunity, even though it contains the little "Ad" word. But what is it then? An useful website that will help you? Yes. Now, there's another question that I'm sure your going to think at: "And how will AdLeaf help me?" Ok, I see that you're a bit impatient and want to know more about this website.. Let me explain you what is the purpose of it..

Simply put, AdLeaf is a good way of driving free traffic to your blog. It's not like Entrecard or BlogRush, where you have to place a widget on your blog's sidebar, but it's something similar to Google AdWords. The only difference between the above mentioned website and AdWords is that this service is free to join and free to use. That's right: you don't have to pay any fees to become an AdLeaf member. All you have to do to start receiving free traffic to your blog or website ( the services can be used by both webmasters and bloggers ), is to sign up to AL, submit your blog for approval and write a Google AdWords-like ad for your blog. After that, when you're approved, you will have to insert a piece of HTML code on your blog and you will start displaying other ads, from other webmasters and bloggers from the AdLeaf network. You can select what type of banner you want to use for your blog ( a skyscraper, a leaderboard, a 468x60 banner etc ) and what colors this should have. The colors can be changed so the banner should be blended smoothly into your blog's sidebar or wherever you'd like to place it.

Once you've done the above mentioned steps and everything is in place, your ad will be displayed on other blogs and websites from the AL network and you will start receiving free visitors. As long as you will keep the banners from AdLeaf on your blog or website, you will earn credits which will be used towards your advertising needs. There are no costs involved here, like at AdWords, for example, where you have to pay big bucks if you want to advertise a site/blog. You'll be able to "pay" with the credits you earn. The more credits you have, the more times your own ad will appear on the AL network and the more visitors you'll receive. It's simple, free and easy to join and use AdLeaf. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to just write an ad, select a type of banner, choose some colors and copy/paste some HTML on your blog. Anyone can do it. And if you've done copy and paste jobs before ( and I'm very sure you did ), then this is the only "skill" you'll need.

So, is AdLeaf working? Will you start receiving 100's or 1000's of visitors to your blog or website? I can't say that. Why? Because it's pretty difficult to come up with a sure answer. There are a lot of factors which can influence you traffic, such as how well is your ad written, how attractive it is, where you've placed the AdLeaf banners on your site or blog etc. It's just like if you'd ask me "Am I going to earn 100 bucks in 5 minutes with AdSense?" Can't say that either..it's pretty much similar to what I've already mentioned about AdLeaf:) Anyway, since this is a free service and it's very easy to use, you can give it a try. You can't never know where the highest number of visitors will come from. And if it won't work to well for you, you can stop using it, without saying that you've wasted any money on it.

You know that in in order to make any sales from your website, you have to advertise it and let your potential customers know that it exists. You can't just simply build an website for your business and then sit and hope that maybe some "lost" internet surfers will land to it and hopefully buy something. This is not how the business are done ( especially online ). It is an old saying: "No traffic, no sales. No sales, no money." And believe me, it's very true.. Website promotion can be done in various ways: through pay per click advertising, banner advertising, search engine submission, search engine marketing ( also known as SEM ) etc. But I think that one of the most powerful ways of reaching a big number of customers in a relatively short period of time, is through viral marketing ( or viral advertising ). I'm talking about viral marketing done ONLINE.

You may wonder why is this type of marketing so effective? Apart from the fact that you can reach a big number of customers in a short period of time ( as I've already mentioned above ), you can also use the advantage of the internet, which has the characteristic of being one of the fastest way to not only finding information about the things you're interested in, but also to spreading the word about a product or service that you want to offer. This is why viral marketing, if done correctly, can have very good results.

Now, this are not the only benefits. In the following lines, I will show 4 more benefits of viral marketing. So, if you want to find them out, then continue reading this article ( may be helpful :)

1. It is easy to execute. Really, as more and more advertising services appear daily and offer a wide palette of advertising solutions, starting your own viral marketing campaign shouldn't be so hard. All you have to do is to find the right company willing to help you in setting the campaign. I won't say this is easy, because there are lots of advertising companies, offering various services, at various prices. But once you've found it and everything is ready to go, then you know you've made the right choice.

2. Low-cost. You don't have to spend a fortune on marketing your business, in the hope of reaching as much customers as possible. Today, with so many advertising agencies and companies being "just a click away", you can take the advantage of having the opportunity to choose the right quality/price ratio, which should fit your business ( and budget, too ). And viral marketing can prove cheaper than the direct mail advertising, for example, which is costly.

3. Targeted. Yes, viral marketing can be ( and it is ) targeted. Of course, is your interest in making it targeted, as you want to reach as many potential customers as possible. And as long as you'll keep advertising and marketing your business to the right clients, you won't have any problems in making sales and making money.

4. High and rapid response rate. As this type of marketing has the possibility of reaching the business' target market, there's a high chance of having high turnover ratio. Even of you won't make a ton of sales from the first incoming customers, you will still benefit of making profits from the traffic which will result afterwards.

This are some great benefits that you can take advantage of, for your business. Viral marketing is indeed one powerful tool to increase popularity of a product or service. However, just like any other things, proper use of the technique is necessary. A single mistake or misuse of it may mean permanent damage to the product or service being promoted.

If you're a blogger, it's likely to have heard about EntreCard. And even if you're just a reader or a webmaster, it's also likely to have heard ( or read ) about this new way of driving traffic to a blog ( yes, EntreCard is aimed to the blogoshpere ). I've already talked about EC in an article written in December 2007 and I've explained there what it's all about ( if you're interested in reading more about it, then feel free to read the article I was mentioning, by clicking here ). You may be wondering why I'm discussing about it once again..? Because right now, I'm not trying to duplicate what I've already said, but I would like to tell you if EntreCard worked for me or not.

Since I've heard about this free service ( yes, it's free to sign up for an EC account and there are no monthly or hidden fees ), I've thought that I must use it, as it may help me increase my blog's traffic. So, I went to this website and created an account. After that, I've placed their widget on my blog and I've started exchanging cards with other fellow bloggers who were having the same EntreCard widget on their blogs, in order to gain not only traffic, but also credits ( which are used to "pay" for advertising on other blogs ). Until now, I've managed to earn about 600 credits. Already, I've used more than a half of them to buy ads on other blogs. If you're interested to know on what blogs, here it are: CarlOcab.com, EtienneTeo.com, TheUniversityKid.com and the InternetDreamer.co.uk. The ads were bought recently and were approved by the bloggers above and will run for a full day on their blogs, later this month ( the first advert will go live on 01/10/2008, on TheUniversityKid.com ). Now, because I've "invested" some of the credits I had, I hope I will receive even more visitors than before, when I wasn't using them for advertising my blog for free.

Until now, I've only talked about how many credits I have and on what blogs I will advertise my own blog, but haven't said anything about the results I had so far with EntreCard. My question was : "Is EntreCard working?" I guess that it is time to answer.. Before using this free traffic resource, I was receiving about 50 visitors/day to this blog. Most of the traffic was coming from LinkReferral ( and it still does ) and the rest from Google and other websites and blogs where I've submitted my blog or left comments. In the first day of using EntreCard, my traffic increased to 70 visitors ( not actually a ton of visitors, but it was good to see 20 more interested in reading my blog ). As the days have passed, this number remain stable, showing that EC CAN deliver some good traffic and improve my stats. At the end of last month ( and year ), 100+ visitors were sent by EntreCard to my blog, adding them to the total of 1500+ who have seen this blog throughout December. Below are some stats, showing you exactly how many visitors came to this blog in December '07 and how many from EC...

Above: The total number of visitors that came to my blog in December last year

Above: The number of visitors who were sent to my blog by Entrecard ( see the third row from the graph, which shows 148 ).

So, to give a final answer to this question: "Is EntreCard working?" YES! As you've seen in the stats above, EC is working. It sent me almost 150 visitors the whole month ( it should have been per day, but it's a start ), so I can clearly say it's a good source of free traffic. I will continue using this source and I hope I will reach even better results, as I need more traffic to this blog. If you too are looking for a free way to increase your own blog's number of visitors, why not to check out EntreCard? It's free, fast and fun. Not to mention that you have the chance of meeting new fellow bloggers and starting some friendships:) Good luck!

Well, the elements I will be talking about in this article apply to any e-book, either it's a viral one or not ( but usually, most of the e-books are viral ). You see, the purpose of an e-book it's not just i that of bringing you some profit ( in case you sell it ), but also to offer people who are downloading it the information they want to find out about a certain topic. This is why it's important to take some time and think what information you'll put in it and how will it look like. You can't simply mix a bunch of useless paragraphs and a ton of affiliate links, even if your book is about making money online, for example. You have to explain how the programs presented in there are working and why do you think others should use them. Also, it wouldn't be recommended to tell lies, just to impress you readers.

The way the e-book will look like is equally important. The colors, graphics or other elements matter too. This will make the difference between being a viral and successful book or just another boring and annoying piece of information, which will "gather dust" on someone's hard-drive. In the following lines I will be talking a bit more about which are the elements of a viral e-book. Should you be interested, then read on please..

1. If you decide to use multiple colors for your e-book's cover, then go for a combination between red, blue, black or white. You don't have to make the book look like a birthday party invitation, by over-exaggerating with colors and graphics, but you should make it pleasant for the eye. For example, if you decide to use yellow for its cover, then you can associate this color with some black, to give it a good contrast.

2. Use strong fonts for your book's main title ( either Arial Black for short titles or Impact for longer ones ). Why you should do this ? Because you'd want to attract your reader's attention and make him want to see what's inside it. If you're using some small, hard to read and unclear fonts, chances are that no one will ever bother in reading the rest of the e-book, no matter how good the content might be.

3. Limited number of fonts. While it's recommended in using strong fonts and even combine them together, overdoing it will make your e-book look like a total mess. People will think you're just playing around with fonts, to see which looks better. They won't know either your e-book is actually something serious to look at, or just a joke. This is why limiting the number of fonts to just 3, will save you of the mess.

4. Don't forget to include the following too:
- a good subtitle ( as the main title is already set )
- the author's name and
- the URL from where the e-book can be downloaded ( in case someone may need to re-download it, if he deleted it accidentally or wasn't able to download it for the first time, due to technical problems, for example ).

5. Include some short biography of yourself and copyrights information, so people should know and take note about them. Also, you can tell your readers what they can find in the e-book ( just keep it short, like a summary, without telling them everything right from the beginning ).

6. The table of contents. One of the most important element of an e-book. Some people may not have enough time to read your book entirely at once, so they may want to see a couple of chapters of it, to have an idea on what they can find in it. Not having the table of contents, would be very hard for that reader to just start searching for a certain paragraph to read.

7. The layout and content of the pages. The layout should be simple and the content shouldn't bother the reader, by having him/her read all those long paragraphs. Just keep it short, but to the point. Also, it's recommended to keep this simple layout and content presentation for all the pages and not make your e-book look like a personal dairy, by combining various colors, graphics or other visual elements together.

8. A page of clear and full instructions on how someone can rebrand the e-book. It's better to include this page in the book, as it would be unpleasant for you to be waken up in the middle of the night by a phone call or be bombarded with a ton of emails asking you how to rebrand it.

The key of creating a viral e-book: simplicity. If your e-book is simple, yet very informative and interesting, people will start downloading it in no time and in the end, as more and more internet surfers will find out about it, you'll know you've created a viral e-book, that has all the elements mentioned above.

You know that I like talking about free and low cost advertising here, at my blog. The reason why I'm doing this, is because free or low cost advertising can be as effective as paid advertising, otherwise, I wouldn't be wasting my time telling you about how nice is to promote your site for free or for some low cost fees. And I do think that you too would like to be able to promote your own blog or website via multiple sources, which won't necessarily dry out your advertising budget ( I know you care about this budget, especially if it is limited ). Plus, I've always considered that if you're doing things right, this types of blog/website promotion would be helpful.

Now, you know that every service or product has its own advantages and disadvantages..and you also know that nothing is perfect in this world ( just show me one single thing that it is perfect, and I will say I was wrong :). When it comes to low cost advertising, we can definitely talk about its advantages and disadvantages too. If you want to know which this are, then I'm sure you'll be interested in reading this entire article..

Let's start with "the nice things" ( advantages ) first:

1. Well, it's low cost ( which is pretty obvious ). If you want to advertise your blog or website and reach a certain audience, then you have a couple of alternatives to select from: free advertising or expensive advertising. You may also go for free advertising, which can deliver you some extra traffic, but if you don't have a good advertising budget, you may not be able to take advantage of the expensive one I was mentioning before. So, the next step would be to choose the low cost advertising.

2. You can capture the market. Of course, you can capture a certain market ( or a niche you're involved in ) if you're advertising your website or blog via expensive advertising. In fact, you'll be able to do it even better, since this type of advertising will definitely work better. But, if you're not the kind of guy who's growing money in trees, then again, low cost advertising will be the solution to your needs ( and will eventually help you to capture that market ( or at least, a part of it )).

3. It's hassle-free. All you need to start benefiting from this form of advertising, is a computer, an internet connection and of course, a website or a blog, and a product or service that you want to promote. This way, you won't even have to leave your house to advertise your business.

4. No need to update your ads that often. Well, you can't just let an ad run for ever, without bringing any changes to it, but the online ads ( unlike TV ads, for example ), don't need to be updated that often. They can run for a while, before you decide making a change.

Now, let's see the "not-so-nice things" ( disadvantages ):

1. Limited market captured. Because this is low cost, you can not expect in capturing the entire market ( or niche ). You will manage to capture usually just a part of it. If you're satisfied with that, then this should be ok for you and you may not consider it a disadvantage. On the other hand, if you want the whole market to be yours, then you'll probably starting looking elsewhere, for more advertising.

2. Additional costs. You see, everything we do ( either online or offline ), comes with an additional cost: when we buy a car, we will need parts later on, to replace the old ones, thus resulting in additional costs; or if we build an website and we'll need a new design for it, we will have to pay, as professional designs don't come free ( unless you manage to win one :). Same applies to this form of advertising. If you don't have time to do website/blog promotion yourself, then you may think in paying someone. So, here it goes: additional costs.

Probably that there are more advantages and disadvantages, but for the moment, this are the ones I've thought off. Anyways, low cost advertising can work for you too, if it's done properly, as I said before. You just have to find the right strategies and apply them and soon, you should see the results:)

Are you an affiliate marketer? How are you earning money online? What are your revenue sources?

Ok, ok, this is not a police interrogation. Also, I'm not conducting any polls at this time. But I think someone may have asked you the above questions, at least once. It doesn't matter who asked: your friends, your family ( I guess they already know how you're making money :), your fellow marketers, bloggers or readers..but you've probably had to answer to the questions I've mentioned.

Probably you've told this curious fellows that you're an affiliate marketer. Some of them may have heard what's an affiliate marketer, while others wanted to know more. So, you've started to tell them that you're making some money online with PPC ( Pay Per Click ) affiliate marketing, PPP ( Pay Per Performance ) or PPS ( Pay Per Sale ) affiliate marketing. By now, those who didn't knew too much already, may be puzzled. Inevitably, they will ask you: "What are this types of affiliate marketing? Can you tell me more about them?" You will be able to tell them more, if you read and remember this article.. Let's see the meanings of all this types of affiliate marketing, shall we?

NOTE: Before explaining all the terms I've mentioned above, I want to once again remember you what's an affiliate marketer. I've done this several times, while writing other affiliate marketing related articles on this blog, but I would like to say it again, just in case you're a first time visitor..An affiliate marketer is a person who's selling other companies'/individual's products or services and is receiving a commission for his work. This is how an affiliate marketer earns money online. Now, we can proceed further...

1. PPC ( Pay Per Click ) - This is the first type of affiliate marketing program we will start with. You want to know how you will get paid by signing up for such a program or website? As the name say, you will be paid on a per click basis. So will the merchant to which you're affiliated be charged, every time someone is clicking his ads or banners. You don't have to wait for a visitor you've sent to the merchants site, to make a sale, so you can get paid. It's enough for that visitor to click the ad or banner of your merchant/advertiser posted on your site/blog, and you will get paid a certain amount of cash ( starting from several cents, up to several dollars ).

2. PPP ( Pay Per Performance ) - As the name suggests, an advertiser you're affiliated with, will only pay you once a sale was completed at his website, by a visitor you've sent there. This time, if the respective visitor is only clicking the ad or banner of your advertiser and visits his site, without buying anything, you won't get any commissions. This type of affiliate marketing is the most lucrative one, and it is preferred by many online marketers, because the profits they make are pretty good, commissions varying from 5% to 60% or more ( this is just an estimation.. ). Also, the advertisers prefer it too, because they will only have to pay IF a visitor actually bought something from their website, not just clicked their ad.

The PPP affiliate marketing can be divided in to two popular sub-types:

- the PPS ( Pay Per Sale ) sub-type: as I already mentioned above, you, as an affiliate, are only making a commission IF a visitor referred by you to your advertiser's site, is buying one of his products or signs up for his service(s). But no matter how you're paid ( commission or fixed fee ), you will make more money from this type of affiliate marketing, than the PPC type, because usually, the commissions or fees are higher for PPP ( or PPS ).

- and the PPL ( Pay Per Lead ) sub-type: this is a slight variation of the PPS sub-type and it is used more often by insurance and finances companies, that need leads, in order to grow their businesses. You get paid every time you send a visitor to this kind of website, and that visitor is filling up a form there ( showing interest in the services offered by the company ). You get paid on a fixed fee basis.

3. Single, Two or Multi-Tier affiliate marketing..let's talk about each one of them..

- In the Single-Tier ( or level ) affiliate marketing, you get paid for every DIRECT referral or traffic you've brought to the advertiser's/merchant's website. The above mentioned types of affiliate marketing ( PPC, PPP ) fall under this category.

- In the Two-Tiers affiliate marketing, you are paid not only for DIRECT referrals, but also for the referrals brought to the advertiser's website by this ones ( this second-level referrals are also known as INDIRECT referrals ).

- And in the Multi-Tier affiliate marketing, you're getting paid from multiple levels of referrals you've referred to your advertiser's website.

4. Residual Income affiliate marketing - In this type of affiliate marketing, you're paid not just once, for a purchase made by a customer you referred to your advertiser's website, but also for each and every future purchase this customer will make. You're share will be based either on a commission or on a fixed fee.

So you see, there are quite a few types of affiliate marketing you can experiment. What's the right one for you? Would be hard for me to tell. It's only up to you to decide which of the above types will work and fit better to you.

I don't know how many of you heard about Vobucks, so I'll tell you more about it immediately. To be honest, I've never heard of this website before signing up for it, about 1 month ago..The reason why I'm writing about it now, is because I've just received a confirmation email from them, letting me know that I was accepted as their new member ( lucky me :P ). I almost forgot about them, since I haven't received any news from them, from the day I've registered. But as it said: "Better later than never." I guess that the reason why I haven't received any emails from them until know, was because they had to check my blog and make sure it was OK to be included in their database, without breaking any rules. Plus, let's not forget that last month was December, and it was a busy month for most of us, especially when preparing for the holidays.

Now, let's get down to "business" and see what's so special about the Vobucks website and how it can help us make some money with our blogs.. First of all, I have to tell you that the above mentioned website is similar to CJ ( Commission Junction - a site I've talked about back in December ( look for it in the Make Money With category, from the "Browse by category" menu, found on the right sidebar )). So, what you have to do start making money with VB?

Well, you have to have a site or blog, before even thinking of joining this money making opportunity. Why? The reason is simple: you will need a place where to put some of the banners or text links of the advertisers you will want to promote, in order to make money. You may even want to do a review about them, so a site or blog is necessary ( NOTE: You don't have to do a review of your advertisers, so you can get paid. I've mentioned this just in case you may think of doing so :). If you already own a site/blog, then you can skip this step and go directly to Vobucks, to sign up for a free publisher account ( to do so, click here ). Once you're approved and you're a member, you can start earning some money, by selecting as many advertisers as you want, and placing their text links or banners on your site or blog. Now, every time a visitor will click those banners or links and will take an action on the advertiser's website, you will receive a commission ( this is called a CPA ( Cost Per Action ) system, meaning that the visitor has to take action, in order for you to get that commission, not just to click the banner/link only ). You will see that there are a lot of advertisers listed on this website, each of them offering unique services or products to be promoted by the affiliates. Being so many, it shouldn't be so hard in finding the right advertiser(s) for your own blog or site.

Now, you may want to know how will you get paid and when? The minimum payout is at $100 ( this is the first-time payment, after which you'll be paid when reaching $50 ) and it is made via check, direct deposit, Epaassporte, MoneyBookers or PayPal ( just like the rest of the payments which will follow it ). Another cool thing about Vobucks is that they will pay you DAILY, every time you'll reach the minimum payout ( $50 )! If you want to find out more about this opportunity and to sign up, why not to visit the official VB ( Vobucks )? You have nothing to lose, only to gain:) Good luck!

So, you thought LinkReferral is only earning you free traffic, right? Well, yes, this is true. But, if you're an upgraded member, you can also make money with LR, by referring new members to this traffic generating directory. Your referred members don't have to do anything else, once they get to the main page of LinkReferral.com ( except signing up, of course :). They don't have to spend their money on any additional paid services that LR is offering, nor they have to upgrade their membership ( which would cost them a one-time fee of $50 ). If the people you've sent over become members, you get paid 0.15 for each of them ( on the 1st level ). I know, it's not a fortune, but you can't complain: this are free money.. Just imagine referring about 10 members every day ( may sound optimistic, but not impossible ): you'll then earn about $1.5 daily and $45 a month. Not bad, huh? You're interested in finding out more about this new money making opportunity? Then, please, read on..

I'm a member of LinkReferral for a long while now. My first account was setup when I've intended to promote one site of mine ( if I'm not wrong, it was a dating website ). Over time, I got involved in searching more ways of making money online and getting free traffic to an website, that I've completely forgot about promoting the site I was mentioning above. So, I kinda lost my interest in doing any promotion and advertising for it. But the situation changed once I've started this blog. I was decided that this time I shouldn't ignore promoting my new blog ( as it happened with my dating website ). I've created a new account at LR and I've started promoting this blog you're reading now. I'm still an active member, only that now I'm a premium one:)

Yup, that's right: I've upgraded my membership, once I saw I can make money with this website, not only driving traffic to my blog. Since I had no money few months ago when the account was created, I had to wait to raise $50 to do the upgrade. Fortunately, I've managed to get this amount of cash and finally become a Premium member last month ( December 2007 ).
Now, you may wonder what benefits you can get, as an upgraded LinkReferral member? Let me show you what you get, for your one-time 50 bucks fee that you pay:

1. You receive commissions for every purchase your referred members make. So, for example, if a member you've referred to LinkReferral buys advertising worth $100, you get paid $15. Or, if he upgrades his membership ( like I did ), you get $7.50.

2. You get paid every time you refer a new member to LR. As I said before, this new member only has to sign up as a basic ( or free ) member, for you to get paid. Once he does that, you earn $0.15 ( on the first level..and there are 5 levels deep, so you will earn money from all this levels too! ).

3. You get paid not only for your direct referrals, but also for every action taken by all the members you referred, 5 levels deep. So, for example, if a referral from the 4th level upgrades his membership or buys advertising on LinkReferral, you earn money. Take a look below and see how much you'll get paid for every level:

Well actually, pay per click advertising isn't dead..and I'm sure it won't die for the years to come. But I needed a catchy title for today's article and thought that the one above will be appropriate:) I hope I haven't scared any of you.. Now, let's talk about a new way of advertising websites, blogs, businesses etc: it's called PPP, which stands for Pay Per Play advertising. I don't know how many of you heard about it, so let me tell you few information about this new and revolutionary form of promotion..

As I've already mentioned in some of the previous articles I wrote here, I'm constantly searching for ways to earn money online, either by blogging or doing anything else, such as affiliate marketing, completing surveys, reading emails, writing reviews etc ( yes, believe it or not, I'm doing this stuffs too :). So, it was almost inevitably not to stumble upon this new money making opportunity, called Pay Per Play advertising. In the above paragraph I've mentioned that PPP advertising is a way of promoting a website, blog or business online..but not only that: you can also earn money with it, just like it happens with pay per click advertising.

But how does it works? First of all, let's see how pay per click advertising works..

1. For an advertiser: once he built his first websites and want people to find out about it, he will have to promote it. And one of the ways to do it is via PPC ads. So, he'll select an advertising network like Google Adwords, he'll set the keywords relevant to his website, the advertising budget and then his ad will go live. Every time someone will click his ad, he'll pay a certain amount of money for that click.

2. For a publisher: once he built a blog or website and got some decent traffic to it, he'll want to monetize it. And one of the ways to do it will be via pay per click ads. So, he'll go to Google Adsense, for example, sign up for a free account and place some ads on his site/blog. Now, every time someone will click the ads placed on his site, he will get paid.

The above concept is pretty much similar to Pay Per Play advertising. The difference is that the ads are not text-based and visitors won't have to click them, in order for a publisher to get paid. You're now wondering: "But what are this PPP ads and how will I make money with them?" This is a good question which is fairly easy to answer: as the name suggests, the PPP ads are audio ads and will play automatically each time a visitor will see your site. And guess what? You will get paid. That's right: your visitors won't have to click any text-based ads or buy anything, so you can make money. They'll just have to hear a 5 seconds long audio ad..

I've just signed up for this new money making opportunity recently and I'm still learning. The official launch date of the PPP network is in February this year. Till then, no ads will be available for you, even if you have inserted the HTML code in your blog or website. So, we still have to wait a bit. If you too want to sign up for free and make money with pay per play ads, you can click here to visit the official website and find out more information.

Would like to tell you that the ads aren't intrusive and I don't believe it will drive away your visitors. Also, they won't interfere with any other applications or widgets that you're running on your website or blog. Lasting only 5 seconds, your visitors won't get bored..If you want to hear a pay per play ad, then visit this website. You think that this might be the money making opportunity you were waiting for? Then feel free to sign up for pay per play ads right away, by clicking this link. Good luck!

Hello everyone! How are you today? I'm just fine and glad to be back updating my blog. Lately, you can think I was lazy or had no will to continue blogging. I assure you it wasn't like that. As you all know, there were the winter holidays, the Christmas, the New Year's Eve etc and I really had no time to keep this blog updated. Plus, I had to take a break and spend some time with my family and friends. Of course, I didn't just sat all day long inside the house; I've also spent my time with a friend at the country for Christmas and enjoyed the pace and the fresh air I found there. We went to play some table-tennis and also took some photos, while taking a ride with Adrian's car ( Adrian is my friend I was talking about :). Once I got back home, at Pitesti ( the city I live in in Romania ), I had to prepare for the New Year's Eve: done some shoppings, helped my parents around the house and also relaxed listening to some music and playing some computer games.

Now, that the holidays have passed ( at least here in Romania ), it's time to once again resume my blogging activity. And today I would like to talk about what I think about last year, show you my last month's traffic and earnings reports and, in the end, to say what are my goals for 2008.
Let's start with what I think of 2007:

- this was a good year for me, in generally. I've managed to create this blog, to maintain it properly and to start making some money with it. It's true, I haven't earned thousands of dollars, but I was able to earn up to $130 in November, for example, which is a good start. Considering that I had no money to advertise it, to buy a domain from the start, or to host it on WordPress, I believe that I've still managed to do a good job with it:);

- also, in the last couple of days from December 2007, I've discovered some few more ways to make money online and increase my blog's traffic. I'll be talking about this methods and I'll use them over the next following weeks and months of 2008.

Now let's move on to the reports:

- last month ( and year ), I've earned about $41.3. This is about 3 times less than in November, when I've made $130, as I've mentioned above. You may wonder why? Because last month I've spent more time investigating various ways of making money online and traffic generating methods, than just concentrating on earning money alone with this blog. Also, December was a month with lots of holidays etc and my traffic decreased a bit, plus I took the break I was talking about in the beginning of this post. So, it was kinda normal to have lower earnings. If you want to know which money making programs/websites brought me those $41.3, here it are:

- AdBrite: $0.07
- Bidvertiser: $0.83
- WidgetBucks: $0.51 ( only from a referral, as I don't display their banners now )
- EntireWeb ( SpeedyAds ): $0.41
- ScratchBack (Tip Me ): $4.41
- FeedProfit: $1.82
- Blogsvertise: $17.50
- SponsoredReviews: $9.75
- Smorty: $6
TOTAL: $41.3

My blog was visited by a number of 1521 people, from all over the world. Out of this, 251 came from LinkReferral, 208 from StumbleUpon and 148 from Entrecard, just to name some of the traffic sources I use to get this blog noticed. I usually receive about 77 unique visitors daily and in one particular day I've received over 200 (!) from StumbleUpon! ( Don't ask me how it happened..it just did ). You can see my traffic stats for that day ( 12/22/2007 ) below..

Above: You can see the number of visitors I've received per total on 22nd of December 2007 - 233

Above: The StumbleUpon traffic on 22nd December 2007: over 200 visitors!

Finally, I would like to talk about my 2008 goals:

1. First of all, I want to improve this blog a lot and let's hope I'll made it. I'm thinking in ordering a custom template, which will fit my tastes better than this one, drive more traffic to it and monetize it better.

2. I'm also planning in completing some projects I've started back in 2007: my Squidoo page and my One Euro Wiki page, which are currently sitting and "gathering dust" on the net:).

3. And the last goal: to start an Affiliate Junktion website and make some money with it ( this way, I will try and diversify my income sources :)

I'm looking forward in seeing what 2008 has for me;) Regards and thanks to all my readers ( 19 ), visitors and advertisers which helped me back in 2007, when I've started my blogging journey. I hope you'll be by my side this year too:) Thanks guys and girls!