Empty Streets Special: Top 10 Ways to Earn Through Blogging

I have gotten a lot of questions from my friends about how I started earning online and if I could compile them to the top ten best ways to earn through blogging specifically. This has had me thinking a bit and after sitting on this article for over a week of consideration and research I have finally come up with a list. However, as I have mentioned to them, earning online is not as easy as coming up with a blog and writing articles. That is just a third of the work that needs to be done - the most part one has to work on is marketing every single article you write to people that you might think would benefit or would be interested in what you have to write. That entails joining social networks and blogging networks to help you get started. It is only after you have ranked up so to speak will you start feeling the benefits of the online blogging business. One thing is for sure, patience and perseverance are the primary keys to earning in whatever field you choose to be in.

With all that being said here are the top ten ways to earn through blogging:

Google AdSense
Obviously Google AdSense is one of the largest online revenue sources for almost every webmaster and blogger, and for a good reason. AdSense is super easy to set up, and it is also easy to manage. All that's required for using AdSense is a blog that has been live for over 6 months and you have the opportunity to make money using AdSense.

There are downsides to AdSense, and the biggest one is that anyone who uses the free blogging service from WordPress is unable to embed AdSense onto their blog. That is the largest downfall of AdSense, and I suggest if you want to earn an income from your blog, I would suggest you consider Blogger for your blogging platform. Also, if you are confused about choosing WordPress or Blogger, or you want to learn the pros and Cons about both blogging platforms, visit this link: Blogger vs WordPress.

An alternative to Google adsense would be Adgitize, which works on similar principles but with less of the strict rules that Google would have.

ClickBank
ClickBank has been around for a few years now, and has become one very large source of income for many people. People actually become millionaires thanks to ClickBank, and the doors are wide open for you to jump in and start earning money with the best affiliate program online. Signing up is free, and all you need to do is find products that you want to promote.

I want to caution you though to never promote something that you would never use yourself, or that you would never buy yourself. Always remember to think about what your readers would want to purchase. And to never promote scam/spammy products.

Amazon
My good friend Amazon Associates is a great revenue source. With Amazon being one of the largest online retailers of literally everything, there is great money to be made by becoming an Amazon Affiliate. Also, the great benefit of Amazon, is that everyone knows about Amazon, people are not afraid of purchasing through Amazon, thus more people will be willing to purchase through your Amazon affiliate links.

Text-Link-Ads
Text-Link-Ads.com is a great 'other' alternative way to earn an income from your blog. TLA is a program that allows you to sell your advertising space on your website or blog. You can either choose to sell 'real estate' on one page, or all pages, and you can also choose to get paid by a one time fee, or through the CTR of each Text-Link-Ad sold. One site I strongly recommend would be Ask2Link

AdBrite - Other Owner Controlled Advertising
There are many owner controlled advertising options such as AdBrite, Chitika, BuySellAds, LinkWorth and many more. The great advantage to using owner controlled advertising is that you have complete controll over what space you sell, and how much money you receive from it. You can sell your space on your website or blog in form of text and or in banner ads. And you get paid a one time fee from an advertiser or each time someone clicks your ads.

Ebay - Ebay Affiliate
Another great way to earn an income online is through ebay affiliate marketing. Ebay is the largest retailer of new and used goods online, and with the downturn economy, people are looking for a way to get products for inexpensive prices. Thus, ebay is making a very large profit every month. So, you can either sell products on ebay, or you can promote other sellers products on your website or blog. Becoming an ebay affiliate is both rewarding and lucrative. Visit ExtremeWealthGuide.com for more information on how to become an ebay affiliate marketer.

Paid Blog Posts
Are you good at writing? Why not get paid to write articles for your OWN blog? Many sites such as IZEA.com offers its clients the ability to write posts about products and get paid doing it! All you need to do is sign up and write articles for advertisers and post it on your blog, then you get paid from that advertiser! In basic terms, you write, and you get paid.

However this is something that I would like to advise to do with caution as the Big G (Google) has penalized a lot of bloggers who have done this sort of thing and pulled their pagerank down to 0. A lot of people may say that this is probably not an important thing, but if you want to be on top of the SEO game and be attractive to advertisers keeping a good pagerank is quite vital if you want to earn a lot in the long run. (I have to admit even this is open for debate - you have to definitely do more research and finding what works best with you)

In Text Advertising - InfoLinks, Kontera, Vibrant Media
In-Text advertising is a great way for you to earn extra revenue from your site without having to sacrifice valuable real-estate form your website or blog. All you do is sign up for any one of those three programs listed above, and pase the HTML code into your blog template, and your text links will automatically be embedded into relevant keywords on your blog. And you get paid each and every time someone clicks those links.

Commission Junction (CJ) - Affiliate Marketing
Many people will be wondering why CJ is placed so low down on this list. But the true fact about CJ is you need a very large blog following to make any money at all. There is good money to be made, but you only get paid if you actually sell a product through banner ads, or text ads. You will not get paid even if the advertisers ads get clicked 100 times per day. You only earn money when your visitors purchase. That is one extreme downfall to affiliate programs such as CJ or LinkShare.

Quality Content!
Putting a lot of advertisement on one's blog is not always the best formula to getting rich. You need to have quality content on your blog to gain visitors and subscribers. You need to also have good content because search engines such as Google look for good content when choosing a site to be listed high on the first page.

This may be the last of the ten things to earn through blogging but is by far the most important of all. It is through your articles that people find you and is what will cause them to come back for more.

To help you even more here is a cool video that talks about the topic to further help you guys out.

Eventually, through time and perseverance am sure that you will make a niche someday in the virtual highway. Have fun with what you do and always be ready to adapt to change. Experiment, experiment, experiment is what my financial adviser would say to me - eventually you will find an accident that will bring you what you have been seeking.

If you have more suggestions or sites that could offer other bloggers on how to earn online please leave them in the comment box with your feedback. :) Let us all help each other out. :) xoxo

Marketing Tips: Hubspot's 5 Tips to Make Your Site a Marketing Machine and Much More.

This Is a video made by Hubspot that talks about the 5 tips on how to turn your website into a marketing Machine.

After going through the video myself I have come to understand the different methodologies and principles that not only apply to website marketing itself but to how people buy stuff in general. This video has simplified the way one looks at the modern marketing industry and shows off how we bloggers have played and can continue to play an important role in the way a business is made and to be more specific marketed.

To help guide you as you start watching the video, here is the summary of the 5 basic steps into making your website a marketing machine:

1. On Page SEO - give search engines the right clues to help them understand what your website is about and what types of people should find your website

2. Off Page SEO - Each link into your site is a “vote” that tells the search engine that your site is important.

3. Blogs - Blogging is a great way to get more traffic from the right audience

4. Convert Visitors to Leads with Forms - you need to capture more of this traffic through lead capture forms

5. Analyze - Marketing is all about measurement and optimizing your activities based on the previous results

Another helpful tool that has helped me out in marketing my website (Empty Streets is now number 2 in organic clicks if one types in "Empty Streets" :) ) is the site called Websitegrader which grades and rates your site based on how effective it is in terms of product and article marketing and it even provides you with a very useful and free analysis of your site. A more detailed analysis of course though would entail a price but with what they can dish out for your site first hand is good enough to start with.

I have also been asked by some readers and fellow bloggers what site would best provide for the constant monitoring and analysis of traffic and site performance without having to shell out serious cash and my answer to them is - Statcounter - a site that tracks traffic activity and much more. What I love about this site is that it contains so many reports that you can use to analyze your site's performance from traffic to what Browser your readers are using. It also allows one to download an excel sheet format of the results which is handy for those that get serious about tracking site performance on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and even yearly basis. All this is provided for by Statcounter for free and installation is as easy as putting a widget on your site.

With all this being mentioned I do hope it has been helpful... Till the next time - xoxo

webbizideas: Search Engine Optimization Tutorial

I have been scouring the web looking for tutorial to help new website builder and bloggers about SEO. This is vital especially in gaining readership and increasing ROI in the time and money one spends in marketing a website and it's content. When I first started it was like a blind person trying to walk around a place filled with so many people telling me where to go so with the introduction of this tutorial By Webbizideas has been a blessing in disguise. It has taught me a lot and given me a lot of those aha moment and oooh so that is how it is done :) So if you are serious about your site and moneytizing or even just want to increase your site's popularity simply watch and enjoy the clip prepared by Webbizideas:



I hope you have enjoyed the tutorial as much as we have. Till the next time. xoxo

Let's see if your upto the challenge. 2000 EntreCard points at stake :)

Half way through here's the Empty Streets Entrecard and eReferrer contest for all you Entrecard holders. Let's see if your upto the challenge. 2000 EC points at stake :)

I think it is time to share some love and fun. I have been gathering points up from entrecard.com and am finally ready to share the love. With the help of eReferrer and of course Entrecard I would like to challenge all you blog crazed and clicker happy folks with and a top site referral challenge.

• 1st place takes home - 2000 entrecard points
• 2nd place takes home - 750 entrecard points

Conditions:

• You must at least leave a comment on one of the articles here in Empty Streets.
• You must sign up for Entrecard to be able to receive entrecard points.
• All forms of campaign and referral methods are allowed.

Mechanics:

We will utilize the statistics provided for by eReferrer as the basis of top referrer. The Period for this competitions officially starts on August 1, 2008 and ends on August 31, 2008.

Results will be given three days after the end date and will be announced here on Empty Streets. We will also place your Blog/website as an advertised website here with the logo of your choice for a period of 6 months.

Happy Blogging everyone :)

Let's play an Entrecard and eReferrer Game: Entrecard points to be given out

I think it is time to share some love and fun. I have been gathering points up from entrecard.com and am finally ready to share the love. With the help of eReferrer and of course Entrecard I would like to challenge all you blog crazed and clicker happy folks with and a top site referral challenge.

• 1st place takes home - 2000 entrecard points
• 2nd place takes home - 750 entrecard points

Conditions:

• You must at least leave a comment on one of the articles here in Empty Streets.
• You must sign up for Entrecard to be able to receive entrecard points.
• All forms of campaign and referral methods are allowed.

Mechanics:

We will utilize the statistics provided for by eReferrer as the basis of top referrer. The Period for this competitions officially starts on August 1, 2008 and ends on August 31, 2008.

Results will be given three days after the end date and will be announced here on Empty Streets. We will also place your Blog/website as an advertised website here with the logo of your choice for a period of 6 months.

Happy Linking

Empty Streets

Search Engine Genie

It's been a long search for a one stop shop for that would satisfy all my statistical queries about where my site stands amongst the vast ocean of big fishes and sharks. Finally, after hitting the right keywords I got to this site who by all rights is a Genie. From Page rank checking, back link tracking even Spider bot statistics, this website has been a fun wonderland. They also enabled me to understand terms that a novice like me would simply scratch our heads and say what the heck was that again... Me being a true advocate of learning through experience would like to share with you the things that I found most useful within this site and hopefully enable you to shed some light to things that you might have found rather puzzling in this fast growing technological era.

Web tools for your web site courtesy of
Search Engine Genie

Google
Multi Sites Google Pagerank Checker
Google Back Link Checker
Future Page Rank Checker
Google Bot Last Accessed Date Checker Tool

Yahoo
Yahoo Back Link Checker

MSN
MSN Back Link Checker

Comparison and Statistics Tools
Back Link Checking
Page Comparision Tool
Google Yahoo Msn Rank Comparison Tool
Indexed Pages Checker
Back Link Checker
Web Page Size Checker Tool
Content To Code Ratio Test Tool
Spider test Tool
Return Of Investment Calculator
Keyword Density Analyzer Tool

Much of these tools have enabled us from Empty Streets to further rethink and restrategize how we go about our content while having fun at the same time. Creating a website/blog is like a little toy that we all love to tinker with as kids and to tell you frankly earning money as you go a long with it is just extra icing on a cake. And hopefully through this we get to share the blessings with all of yah...

Till the next writing

Empty Streets

Earn While Clicking: bux.to

Been searching for a cool, fun and easy way to earn money. In this search I found this curious oddity called bux.to and as it says in the banner all you have to do is view and click to earn money. I know it's hard to believe but heck it works. :) Catch is you have to sign up with ALert.pay which is similar to Paypal and is still on its developing stage. But heck it still earns us the money and cash out is done the moment you hit $10. Knowing how clicker happy some people are I'd bet that this would definitely be a hit. Heck, maybe a new career may be in the making. Clickers for hire, hehehe, I know I may be laughing about it but for some reason at the back of my mind am actually considering that :). Oh, well till then I strongly recommend for you to at least try it out. Only thing you could loose is just a little bit of time for spare change. I still think it is worth it, at least until I find something much better. till then... xoxo

To sign up simply click here: bux.to

Optimizing Google Adsense for your Blog

I have been working with Optimizing Google Adsense for months now and I have studied and reviewed a lot of tips on how to maximize the positioning for their ads on my blogsite. Experimentation and analysis is definitely a must and having my site set up with Google Analytics has been quite helpful and so has Statcounter both of which are absolutely free. Aside from these things I have decided to share here what Google Adsense believes based on their marketing and research is the most efficient way to Blogitize your site to efficiently gain profit and of course hits:

Optimizing tips from Google Adsense

When working with a blog, you're facing some interesting ad implementation challenges: a predetermined page format, highly targeted content, and regular visitors, among other things. To make the most of your readership and content, here are a few suggestions:

Blend ads into your blog


To increase the likelihood that your readers will see and click on your ads, blend your ad units into the background of your blog. Choose a bold color for the ad title to help draw attention to your ads, then make sure that the background and borders of your ads are the same color as the background of the area where the ad is placed.


Experiment with multiple ad formats and locations

In general, wider ad formats tend to be more reader-friendly. Placing an ad unit after the first post will likely catch your readers' attention. Take a look at our sample implementations to get some ideas. Also, consider placing a Skyscraper (120x600) or vertical link unit on the right side of your blog. If you're using Blogger, you can find instructions on placing AdSense code in your blog's sidebar.

Offer readers more options with search and referrals

To make sure you're earning the most revenue possible with AdSense, go beyond just ads to use AdSense for search and referrals. You can increase your earnings, provide readers with valuable information, and take advantage of flexible formats.

Improve ad targeting

With section targeting, you can target an ad unit to a specific section of your blog, as well as block out irrelevant sections like navigational links. We recommend that only those familiar with HTML attempt to implement section targeting.

Tip for generating more traffic to your blog: If you're a Blogger user, activate this setting to notify Weblogs.com, a blog update notification service, whenever you have updated your blog. That means your blog will be included in various "recently updated" lists on the web as well as other blog-related services.

*If you have more tips on ways to further improve and moneytize our sites feel free to leave or send a comment below or to our email link.