SlowMoney

I was talking to a good friend not so long ago, who was telling me that more and more of his time of the internet was taken up by him ‘drifting’. By this he meant that he might sit down, look at a web page he intended to, but then he would see a link that interested him, even though it wasn’t what he sat down to look at. And then from that new page, he would see another 2 links that look interesting, and he would look at those and so on. So from just visiting one page that he wanted to look at, he could just start drifting all over the internet.

I also tend to find this a lot, and so we thought this has come neatly after the invention of tabs on internet browsing. I think websites are now taking advantage of the fact that most, if not all, web browsers have tabs, which makes it alright for the page viewer to have a casual browse through links.

So we have internet surfing, and now internet drifting. I think now that tabs are becoming a larger part of internet browsing, it is important that those looking to make money out of the internet should take advantage of it, and think about going into PPC services (Pay-Per-Click). It just makes sense…

I’ve been spending good time this work on keeping content updated on my Squidoo lens’s. Probably my main update has been access to both Amazon UK and Amazon US stores for ALL my Amazon associate links. I have also added the built-in Amazon widget, which I have heard is a money-maker. The only downside to this widget is it only supports Amazon US, and not Amazon UK. Still, items can be bought from the UK on the US store.

Although I’ve not had any orders through my Amazon associates (I’m not expecting any within the first few weeks realistically), I am pleased with my progress. My Xbox 360 Store lens is constantly staying in the top 5,000 rank-wise (helped along by a 5-star rating), and is staying at around 35 hits in the last 7 days. My PSP lens however is lagging massively behind. It’s always stuck on under 10 hits a week, and I’m not sure on how to give this a boost. I’ve added Amazon UK and US links to it, but still nothing. I am starting to wonder if there’s still a market for the PSP, or whether I’m just missing it.

I’m also working on adding more Amazon widgets, containing the likes of console accessories (bags, custom faceplates, SD cards etc.).

I know my MafiaDeath lens isn’t a money maker, but I can still use it to learn how get the most out of a lens, and so far it’s working. I nearly have 40 hits in the last 7 days, and it’s popped into the top 10,000 in the rankings. The major breakthrough is that it’s the 3rd result on Google for MafiaDeath, straight in after 2 results for the official website! Impressive!

I’ll keep on working on them!

Say hello to the new way of getting your RSS feed out into the open: rssHugger! I came across John Chow’s post on its service becoming free, so I thought, there’s nothing to lose; so far I seem to be right.

Registration was surprisingly quick: no need to go to my email to wait for a verification email - you’re lead straight to your ‘rssPanel’ where you can add your blog and change your profile with ease. It’s really that simple.

The rssHugger helps me by:

Helping my Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Letting more readers know that I am here

Sending people who are interested to my blog (hopefully)

RssHugger started by asking for a $10 fee to add your blog to the website, but due to heavy demand, it’s taken up John Chow’s idea to make a review post of the rssHugger on your blog, to get your blog into their database. Hopefully for rssHugger, this will make them more viral.

I really hope that rssHugger can help me in the battle to win the right viewers!

I’ve worked a little on my two lens’s, Xbox 360 Store and PSP Store, but some of you have may have noticed a third lens has appeared in my profile; MafiaDeath. This may be the reason I haven’t posted much over the last couple of days. It is a VERY addictive game, and people genuinely seem to be interested in reading it, and I’ve already had one contact me with questions, because of the Squidoo page. My reply to his question, gave the frame to another text module, which I have done called, ‘More Money Making’. I’m informed at the SquidU forum (this thread) that the page did reach Google’s front page when you search for ‘MafiaDeath’, but seems to have mysteriously disappeared. I don’t know why this is, but as I add more content, hopefully it will reach the front page again.

My Xbox 360 store is getting 4x as many hits as the PSP store, which I think is because the 360 is newer, and it’s a more mainstream console, whereas the PSP is a handheld. Still, this is part of the experiment. I have learnt that you should probably go for the more mainstream items, because this is of more interest to the public.

So I need to get that targeted traffic that everyone is making a fuss about… I’ll work on it.

Ok, I’ve been with Squidoo for a while now, and it didn’t go to well. Squidoo works like an adapted Wikipedia. There’s a page for each topic, but it’s content can be completely different. Users can claim a page (lens), and put whatever they want about that topic on it. To my knowledge, there are currently only a few ways of making money out of this online:

So far, I have used Amazon associates links but with no more than just clicks. I haven’t really put the effort or time in yet that I might have perhaps liked too. I think for me, I was attacking it the wrong way. I set up one lens, and then after seeing how easy it was, I set up another 10 or so. This didn’t work at all, because as I quickly found, I don’t have the time to really make something productive out of my lens’s, so I’ve decided to experiment to see if I can get the results I am hoping for, simply from a lens on Squidoo.

It’s going to work like this: I am going to have 2 lens’s, a manageable amount by any means, give them plenty of tender loving, provide helpful and interesting content, and try and make a bit of money out of them, through a mix of Amazon associates and the Amazon and eBay widgets available on the Squidoo site (it’s worth pointing out at this point that Squidoo pays 50% of the royalties gained through your page, which includes via Google ads, Squidoffers, the Amazon widget and the eBay widget). So I have deleted almost all of my lens’s, apart from an Xbox 360 Store lens, and a PSP store lens, simply because those both have the most hits, and the Xbox one has a 5 star ration already, and is ranked in the top 15,000 (not bad for a lens that’s lacked the TLC it deserves for the last month or so…)

I shall keep you informed of what happens.

(If you know what Agloco is, skip this first part). Agloco is a way of making money that seems to be on its own at the moment. Previous companies have tried the same concept, but have failed. Agloco doesn’t seem to be going that way. It works like this. You download their ‘viewbar’ which is a little bar that sits at the bottom of your internet browser, and adverts appear on the bar, as well as an Ask.com search bar. Find out more.

I’ve been watching for any news for the Mac version, but all I’ve got on searching is, “Later, we will release Mac and Linux versions of the Viewbar.” - that’s helpful…

But anyway, I’ve signed-up for an account, so I’ll try various methods of getting a network of users, as I can’t actually work on it myself (yet).

Hello! Welcome to the blog! I really hope to make this blog enjoyable to read and a blog that people will go back to again and again. It’s all about me making money (hopefully). I’m quite new to this, and so I thought it would be nice to get a blog and let you know how it’s going. There’s already a ton of internet sites, ebooks and stuff talking about making money, so I thought I’d get myself going on the roller coaster.

So I’m new, and I want to slowly get used to some of the many ways of making money online. To make things a little clearer, I’m going to set a couple of reasonable targets:

- 50 RSS subscribers (February 08)

- 100 Page views a day (February 08)

- £10 profit a month (February 08)

It might also be worth pointing out, I have a Mac Mini, so some online money-making which involves having to install programs might be a bit of a problem..

Anyway, I’m just going to go with the flow and see how things go.