While cruising my feed-reader I came to a headline on Blogging Mints that caught my eye. The author was posting about Snapbomb, which is a new pay-you-to-blog service. After reading her entry I decided to check it out (ie. “sign up” because I am SUCH a follower, lol).

When you sign up and add your first blog they rate your blog with a “base value” according to (I’d assume) visitors and links in. The base value is what you will get no matter what for writing a blog post. This will adjust upwards based on how well you match up to a particular opportunity

According to Snapbomb - “Christineisms” rates between $9.51 to $38.04. “Starryskye” on the other hand rates between $23.98 to $95.92! Want a higher “base value” for your blog? Work on your blog marketing! Forget SEO and all that PR stuff and work on commenting, getting inbound links and getting PEOPLE to notice your blog - don’t worry about what the Google Gods have to say!

In order to find things to write about you click on the “Find An Opportunity” link to pick a topic, then you get so much time to write your post. I am finding it difficult to figure out how long it takes to get paid - but the site does say that your post will be monitored for several months to ensure that it remains active. So, does that mean it will take more than a month to get paid?

All questions aside - it was very easy to sign up, and I was happy with what they say my blogs are “worth” so I will be finding some opportunities to blog about and letting you all know how it goes

I signed up for Project Payday today. It was free - I hate signing up for things that promise me the moon and make me pay for a dumb ebook. Anyway, I mentioned it was free - it’s only free until midnight on the 24th - then it’s back up to $34 and change.

I was surprised by the information on the website. I won’t spill it all here - but I will say that I never thought you could make money working those “Win a Wii by Doing These *Free* Offers” (that are almost never completely “free”).

I’m going to try out the program in the next couple days and report back my findings.

It’s late right now and the thought just crossed my mind to write a few entries on professional blogging. Everyone has their own ideas about what is considered pro blogging and I’d love to share what I’ve found. So, keep your eyes peeled for more in this series!

Pro-Blogging: Making Money with Your Blog!

So, say you have a blog. What is a blog you ask? Well, according to Wikipedia:

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts.

So, like I said you have a blog (or would like to start one for the sake of making money - I ain’t gonna shame ya!) and while you love to write it, you think “hey - there must be more I can do with this blog o’mine!” - well young Anakin, there is! You can make MONEY! Maybe not a lot of money, but there is money to be made.

Start off on a free site such as Blogger if you must - but understand that many places offer a domain (yourname.com) for less than $10 a year - hosting can be as little as $5.00 a month if not less! But, I will/

So - if you are considering going “Pro” with your blog(s) then there are a few tips you should glean from those already in the “business” and doing “well” at it. Now, “well” can be taken as me saying “I made $500 this month from blogging” to a BIG Success stating that they have made ” … over $10,000 this month” with their blog. Either way - you are either needing some extra cash. You could be anyone from a stay at home mom to a college student to the Next Big Internet Entrepreneur. Doesn’t matter. Point is, we all don’t know it ALL and we all learn from each other (well, I learn from everyone else!! lol).

My one quick bit of advice for you? Get a domain name. In my own honest opinion (and the honest opinion of several thousand advertisers) you WANT that “.com” (or whatever) behind your name. Sub domains are fine - but make sure it’s yours. I own a few domains - 2 of them are “monetized” and this domain is run by my husband.

Then once you have your blog (either your freebie or domain) get it going - try and post each day. Most advertisers want content - in fact, I’m beginning to see that a lot of advertisers want NICHE content. If you are going for the pay-per-posting route (there are a few out there) I know that Pay Per Post just changed their Terms of Service (TOS) to allow blogs that are 30 days old with a minimum of 10 existing posts written in the 30 days prior to being registered and/or accepted. The company PayU2Blog works on factors including quality and quantity of posts.

Links to Check Out: PayPerPost, PayU2Blog and also DreamHost.

Ps. If you choose DreamHost check out the RetailMeNot coupons here!

I was poking around online and found a link to a website called Doba which is a website you sign up for, and then sell items on eBay for. Basically, you list an item on eBay - and (hopefully) sell it. Then, you collect the money from your customer, pay Doba for the item - and Doba sends the item to the customer. But, any extra profits from the sale are yours. So, I’d assume that if and item + shipping ends up costing Doba $25.00 and you sold that item for $30.00 then you get to keep $5.00. Seems to me like an interesting deal. I mean, you don’t have to worry about shipping. But, you also have to worry about the fact that Doba might be a scam and your feedback score might go very far down on eBay thus rendering your account unusable for both buying AND selling.

Does anyone have any feedback regarding Doba?

According to their site:

With Doba you can start a business without investing large amounts of money and with very little risk. you don’t have to carry inventory or pay for inventory up front — if the product doesn’t sell, you never buy it.

You don’t have to buy packaging materials or shipping labels, nor will you need a shipping account. You simply set your own retail prices, then purchase the products at wholesale.

Sounds good, but maybe “too good” you know? Let me know what you think of it! I’d love to be able to share other ways to work at home with my readers!

Less than a week left until Valentine’s Day. I’ve never been a HUGE Valentine’s fan to be perfectly honest. I mean, even when I had a boyfriend growing up I was still pretty anti-V’Day. My hubby and I always joke and call it “VD-Day” and I usually end up wearing black or something equally not red or pink. Last year my husband was deployed and I wore a shirt that said “Missing My Sailor” and “Deployments Suck” in fact. This year, while he’s not going to be deployed – he will be away from me serving his country. Just for a few days though; a few days that include Valentine’s Day.

I’m expecting flowers – only because he knows I love to get flowers. I like roses, but I’m super cheap so anything pretty and assorted is wonderful in my book. He usually uses 1-800-Flowers to send them, so I’d assume he will do that same again this year.

1800flowers.com has a HUGE assortment of bouquets and even organic fruit gifts for your schweetheart – or yourself! They have good prices to and believe me; their flowers are fresh and last for days and days. Plus, from all the flowers I’ve gotten I’ve assembled a nice vase collection; their vases are too cute.

I personally like these (NO! That’s NOT a hint Alan!):

Wow! It’s been a heckuvah week! I’m glad it’s Friday, not that I “work” or anything - but my hubby does and he needs a break from it. I’ve been having some issues this week also - for one, my cell phone disappeared for a few days, during that time the battery died, so I couldn’t even do my old “call myself” trick to find it. Hubby had an epiphany last night and helped me move the couch to find my phone underneath it! That’s what I get for having a tech-savvy 3 year old who loves cell phones I guess.

During the time of the missing phone I got a call from the bank asking me or hubby to call them back. Apparently, someone took our bank card number and spent over $600 at various gas stations in the Queens area of New York! In a few days the mortgage is due and that was 1/2 of it - so, unless the bank EXPEDITES returning my MONEY I’m taking out a cash advance. Blah. Can’t they wait until payday to steal money?

On the good side, I got paid for a few Pay Per Post blog entries in the past couple days and someone bought 2 text links off 2 blogs for $50 total (paid today!) so thankfully, the blogosphere is still good to me. There is someone offering to buy a few other text links in paragraph form on my military blog, but I don’t want to put them on it. I’d rather pimp out this blog or Starryskye

My Firefox just finished updating and I need to restart so I guess I am done for a little bit. Don’t mind me if I spam the blog with a couple more paid posts A girls gotta make a living ya know