Make Cash Online From Your Articles With Squidoo

Squidoo, you have probably heard of it, but have you used it? Up until recently all I really knew about Squidoo is that it drives major traffic and that people love it. I saw it as yet another place where you can submit your articles and maybe get some exposure, but I didn't realise the full potential of this site until I signed up and dived in.

In this post I will be talking about Squidoo.com and how you can use it to make money online.

What is Squidoo?

Development on Squidoo started in 2005, launching a beta testing period in October of that year. The launch team consisted of Seth Godin, his book editor Megan Casey, former Fast Company employee Heath Row, Corey Brown, and Gil Hildebrand, Jr.

Squidoo is a user-generated website which uses the concept of a lens as its primary feature. In his ebook "Everyone's an Expert," Godin describes a lens as "focusing light and showing us what we need to see."

The site came out of beta testing two months later and reached 100,000 lenses within the first six months.

What is a Lens?

Lenses are much like blog posts, except they're on a single subject.
The users who create lenses are called "lensmasters" (like Webmaster). A lensmaster can be anyone with an interest in a specific subject; they do not necessarily have to be experts.

Squidoo also offers many ways to enhance a publishers lenses through things called modules. Modules work much in the same way as widgets. They basically add extra functionality to your Squidoo pages e.g. Guest comments, Link List, RSS Feed and video modules plus many more.

You can also earn points and trophies related to your activity on the site, these can be used to unlock more tools and other content you can use to add more functionality to a lens.

Before you start creating your lens check out the Originality Pact.

 

How can I make money online with Squidoo?

The site also allows content creators to make money online from referral links to sites using modules like Amazon.com and Ebay. Lensmasters also get a share in the advertising revenue generated from Google ads and in-text ads on their lens.

Lensmasters can track their earnings through the easy to use dashboard and also see other statistical data about the activity on their lens.

Sqidooo also gives users the option to give a share of their profits to charity. This is a great way for top money makers to give a little help to those who need it.

Check out this page for more info on building a lens: http://www.squidoo.com/whybuildalens

Royalties and Payments

As I'm fairly new to Squidoo I have decided to link this section to a brilliant lens I found that explains in much greater detail than I can, how Squidoo's earnings, Payouts & Royalties work.

Here is the link: http://www.squidoo.com/squidoo-payouts

Tips:

Lenses are moderated before they are made 100% live to make sure there is no duplicate content being submitted, so make sure your lens is unique before submitting.

Use all the tools available to make your lens as interesting as possible, also interlink your lenses if you can. As well as interlinking, getting some backlinks to your lenses will help them do better in search engines.

Like all ways to make money online, you need to stick at it. The more articles you have, the more money you make.

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Lower Your Blogs Bounce Rate With Related Posts

As we know, without traffic a web site is virtually useless so we take huge steps to increase our visitor counts. But a lot of us don't take into consideration how active these visitors are on site, after all, there is no point having lots of hits if know ones reading your stuff, right?

When looking at how visitors interact with your site the bounce rate becomes a very useful bit of info, and by knowing the facts you can work towards improving your stats. CTR a little low? You might want to check your bounce rate.

What is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate, put simply, is the percentage of bounced visits to your site.They jump in, they bounce out.
This is how Google describes bounced visits ...

• A user clicks on a link deep into your site sent by a friend, reads the information on the page, and closes the browser.
• A user comes to your home page, looks around for a minute or two, and immediately leaves.
• A user comes directly to a reference page on your site from a web search, leaves the page available in the browser while completing other tasks in other browser windows and the session times out.

A high bounce rate means people visit your page and leave almost straight away, a low bounce rate shows that your visitors are actually reading, participating and clicking around your site.
So you can see why it could be important to know this stat.

Improve Bounce Rate with related posts

To improve bounce rate we need to give users a reason to continue digging around our site and one of the easiest ways to do this is to place a related posts/content widget below your posts.

Related posts/content widgets usually display the title and sometimes a short summary of maybe 4 or 5 posts. Using thumbnails is great way of catching peoples attention. Check out the example image below...

By offering further information related to the content of the page or even something that looks interesting to read, you are not only supplying readers with a wealth of information you are keeping them engaged and more importantly on site.

Top related post widgets.

If you are interested in improving your bounce rate with related posts, here are a few third party related posts widgets you might want to check out...

LinkWithin

Link within is the related post widget I use here on VirtuaCash (may change soon). It is very simple to install on most popular platforms and you don't even have to sign up to use it.

NRelate

NRelate is very similar to linkwithin. You don't need to sign up to use it, although signing up gives you more advanced options. NRelate also allows you to make some money from your links.

Outbrain

Out brain is a popular widget that's great for customising using css. It also offers you the chance to make some money from your links, like NRelate.

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Third party comment systems, good or bad?

Whilst thinking about how I could improve the design of the blog I thought to myself, "should I use a third party commenting system?"
I have used various commenting systems so I set about trying out a few on the site to see what suited it best.

After installation every thing looked great. It worked good, looked good, but then I thought to my self, "there must be some downsides to using these third party commenting systems".
And there are...

Integration

On certain platforms like blogger, once integrated and left on site for a while there is no going back. If you ever decide to remove the commenting system your comments are gone too. This is definitely something to think about before installing a commenting system.

Yet another account

We've all got too many accounts to deal with already, right? It can be annoying having to log into a completely different account every time you want to manage your comments. I forget my passwords and log-in's all the time, I cant be bothered with the hassle of requesting log in details for yet another account.

Lack of control

All the data is stored on another server that you have no control over. Using default comment systems can stop problems like comments not working due to server down time. By using a 3rd party system your at the mercy of the site you signed up with, if your account suddenly disappears, what are you gonna do?

SEO

Most 3rd party comments are framed. What is this doing to my sites seo? Are comments being indexed correctly?

But do these little problems over weigh the positives of third party commenting systems? After all, I like them enough to want to use them on my blog. What are the pros?

Spam control

Third party commenting systems provide spam control that most default systems don't have.This is great for people who receive high amounts of comments, it can cut down moderation time a lot.

Social media log in

You can make it easier for your visitors to leave comments by allowing them to log in using existing accounts on multiple social networking sites like Facebook, no need to create new profiles. Facebook have there own commenting system which allows you to communicate with facebook contacts directly.

Enhanced Functionality

Certain commenting systems offer little perks that you just wont find with your default comments. Like intense debate with comment luv and ratings, or Facebook comments seamlessly integrating your social networking with your site.

As you can see, there are many reasons why using 3rd party comments can be useful, so are they good or bad?

Overall, I think they are good, although it would be wise to have a little think about the downsides before added it to your site long term. Some times there is just no need for a 3rd party system.

Even though they have their downsides, they have many features that are worth taking advantage of. Below are a few comment systems worth checking out if you are thinking about adding one.

Top 4 third party comment systems

Disqus

Intense debate

Facebook Comments

Livefyre

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SEO Friendly Blog Post Titles the John Chow way

As most of you already know, your blog titles are one of, if not, the most important factor in ranking well with search engines. The problem is there are numerous ways we could go about creating SEO friendly post titles, everyone seems to have their own way of doing it.

Even though there are various methods or strategies for thinking up seo friendly post titles one thing is common to all of them, keyword research. Keyword research can take a lot of time when done manually,  so aren't we all glad that there are many automated (well, semi) ways of doing this tedious task.

I have previously posted about keyword research using Wordtracker and Gtrends , but i came across this video by John Chow that demonstrates a neat little Wordpress plugin called Keyword Winner. Using this plugin you can do post title research from within your post editor as you create a blog post.

Check it out below and let me know what you think.

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How to add a Custom Favicon to your Blogger blog - Official

The favicon should be in .ico format, popularly known as windows ICO (icon) file format and should be less than 10kb. The best and appropriate sizes are 16×16 pixels and 32×32 pixels. You can easily create one with any photo editing software but most of them don’t allow the image to be saved in icon format. In that case you can save your image in .png format and use any online tool to generate favicon or use GIMP, a small but powerful photo editing software, to create one. Name the file as “favicon” and save it in you computer’s hard drive.
After you have successfully created the favicon, all is left for you is to add it to Blogger by clicking the “Edit” link beside “Favicon” as shown in the picture above. Choose the file that you have saved on your hard disk and “Save” it.

To be noted

• After saving the settings for your custom favicon, you may not be able to see it immediately while viewing your blog. This happens because the default Blogger favicon remains there in your browser’s cache. To view it, clear your browser’s cache or wait for sometime or days to expire and get deleted by itself.
• Your blog’s favicon URL is:

http://your-blog.blogspot.com/favicon.ico

By Raju

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How to add Google Adsense Ads to Blogger Below Post Title, Above Content or Below Content Area

Adding Adsense ads below post title or above content area is definately a good way to increase your CTR ( click through rate ) in Blogger. Also, if you've placed it in your blogger post above the fold, you will receive higher CPM rates than at the bottom of your page below the fold area of your blogger blog. This technique of placing Adsense within a post is a great way of getting more targeted ads to your site, thus, more clicks on ads.

Before you start I just want to tell you a couple of good ad units that work well below blogger posts...

    Large Rectangle (336 x 280) - Recommended First

    Medium Rectangle (300 x 250) - Recommended Second

These Ad formats are highly recomended. You can also choose to align your ads to the left, right or center using float.

So lets get started : )...

How to add Google Adsense Ad Below Blogger Post Title

1. If you want to show your Google Adsense ad BELOW your Blogger post title on the LEFT side, then copy the below Code...
(Replace YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE with your Ad Code)

<div style="float: left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0;">
YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE
</div>

OR

2. If you want to show your Google Adsense ad BELOW your Blogger post title on the RIGHT side, then copy the below Code...
(Replace YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE with your Ad Code)

<div style="float: right; margin: 10px 0px 10px 10px;">
YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE
</div>

OR

3. If you want to show your Google Adsense ad BELOW your Blogger post title in the CENTER, then copy the below Code...
(Replace YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE with your Ad Code)

<div style="text-align: center; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0;">
YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE
</div>

NOTE:

If you use Code 1. and Code 2. then your content will start to show on the other side of your ad.
If you want your content to show below your Google Adsense Ad, then paste the following code just below  Code 1. or Code 2. ...

 <div style="clear:both"/>

NEXT:

Now you need to add this code to you Blogger Template. Sign into your Blogger account and go to Dashboard--> Design--> Edit HTML, make sure you check the EXPAND WIDGET TEMPLATE box.

Now find this code (use ctrl+F)...

<data:post.body/>

Now paste your code just BEFORE that code.

NOTE:

If you are using the automatic read more option for your custom Blogger template, then you will find the <data:post.body/> code more than once. So, do it for each one and look which one is working (make sure to backup you template). You can paste for both, if you want to display on home and post pages.

All Done!

 

A little Extra...

The area below the content of your post pages or you could say the area above your comment section is also a great place to catch your visitors eye. Placing your ads here could be beneficial if using the Large Rectangle (336 x 280), Medium Rectangle (300 x 250) or Banner (468 x 60) formats.

Now, if you want to show your Google Adsense ads ABOVE the comments area of your Blogger post pages, then do the procedure as you did before but this time paste your code just after this code...

<data:post.body/>

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Your Content Does Matter. Content rules

Making a content-rich website is the key to succeeding online, but "content-rich" doesn't mean having Harry-Potter-length content. You need a collection of short but informative pieces.

Collection

The more articles you have on your site, the more internet surfers you can capture. Because search engines provide page-by-page results, articles on different topics show up in search results for different keywords.

So if you have a lot of articles on different topics, searchers can find your articles in the search results for a wide variety of keywords - hence, more traffic to your site. In reality, however, not every article generates the traffic directly from search engines. But having a large collection of articles generates consistent traffic far better (because there is less of an effect on algorithm changes) than the average SEO.

Length

Many people think longer articles are better, but that is not so. Ideally, your article can be read within 60 to 90 seconds. This is how long the average person will pay attention. For my newsletter content, I try limiting the length of articles to less than 300 words. Considering the fast-paced behavior of internet users, I'd say 300 words is still rather long.

Special Concerns

If your target audiences are members of low-literacy groups, such as children or people with developmental disabilities, writing short content will become more critical. Low-literacy users need more time to read any given article than average-literacy users do.

Also, average-literacy users often scan and find the part of an article they want to read, but low-literacy users generally cannot do this; they read your content from top to bottom. Pay extra attention to every word you put in the articles to determine if each one is absolutely necessary.

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Make Money Online Blogging and More for beginners

Beginner...

You know who you are… Low levels of traffic, relatively new blog, little or no internet experience, no design or seo skills, and probably a sense frustration over the lack of online earnings.

Some of the options in this section are better then others and as a matter of fact all of them can be used no matter what level you are currently at. Novices can use any beginner level monetization methods and Probloggers have the luck of using everything and anything they see fit...

PPC

Pay Per Click is an advertising program in which ads are placed on your blog and you are paid whenever your visitors click on the ads. It is the most common method bloggers use to make money online. It involves almost no effort and is so incredibly easy that many blogs have too much advertising on them. You make more money as traffic levels increase.

CPM

Cost Per Thousand (“m” is roman numeral for thousand) is an impression based advertising system. This means advertisers place ads on your blog and you are paid based on how many times the ad shows up. This can be a great way to make money online for blogs with big traffic, and can start to bring money to even the smallest blogs. All you need is pageviews to increase this monetization method.

Money Widgets

A very simple advertising system is easily integrated into your blog’s sidebar with widget advertising. Just embed the widget into your sidebar and watch the ads begin.

In-Text Ads

You know what these ads are. You have probably seen them all over small blogs and websites on the internet. They are links with double-lines below them. While sometimes useful for blog owners to make money online, they eventually irritate and annoy most readers into leaving the blog and not returning/subscribing. In-text ads should be used with caution.

Parked Domains

Have a few domains you are planning on using soon but are not ready to start? Parked domains serve the purpose of advertisement and traffic redirection. This is perhaps the easiest way to make money online, although in small amounts. Just get a domain name and use the very easy parked domain programs.

Donations

We have probably all seen the little button that says “donate” in someones sidebar. It is an easy and perhaps out-of-date way to try and earn money online. Many programmers use this still, but very little revenue is earned through the donation feature. For example have you ever donated? But still it is simple and if you don’t mind the button then go ahead and try.

Affiliate Marketing

Perhaps the most lucrative process for earning money online is by using your blog to recommend useful and relevant products to your readers. The best examples are seen by the many bloggers linking to different themes, ebooks and other products. The best thing about affiliate marketing is that you are only marketing the product and not selling it. Just make sure the product is relevant and not over-used.

Text Link Ads

As your blog builds reputation and traffic your posts/pages become great places for links. Many people will even pay you to put their link on your website or page. While it has earning potential, be weery of this form of revenue as it may be detrimental to your blog in Google’s algorithm. So study it out before you make your decision.

Feed Ads

An easy way to make money online from advertisements shown on your blogs rss feeds. The simplest way is to get Feedburner and set it up for your blog. Once you have done that then click on the monetize tab and Google Adsense will be added to your feeds in almost one-click!

Paid Surveys and Polls

It is just what it says it is. You fill out surveys and polls or place them on your blog for others to fill out and earn money. In doing this option be careful to find survey or poll companies that have credible backgrounds as this is a source for scammers.

Pop-up Ads

These pesky and annoying advertisements may be great for some of your niche blogs or sub-domains. Not worth putting on blogs you actually want to build a community on, pop-up ads offer decent revenue to blogs looking to exist but not grow significantly. But be aware that it is annoying to the reader.

Audio Ads

“You are a winner”, “You may have just won a free Ipod”, etc. These audio ads can be very targeted to your traffic and very successful or completely useless. For instance, many surfers do not even have their sound on while they surf to avoid such advertisements. I would recommend not using this sort of advertisement for long-term projects.

Article Marketing

A two-edged sword. You get both quality backlinks to your blog and its posts while also creating earning potential. I use Squidoo and Associated Content personally and earn enough money to support my blogging efforts and some advertising. It’s also very easy through the simple resources available to you. Using this blogging income source is both potentially lucrative and excellent marketing.

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