As many of my readers know, I do some paid blogging in order to make some extra cash to pay off credit cards and do fun things with my kiddo. Well, I’m not ashamed! LOL! I’m pretty clear when I do a paid post, but now, since I signed up for SocialSpark it’s REQUIRED that I disclose! So all you disclosure freaks will be happy! (I’m teasing … but I know you all appreciate it when you are told you are viewing essentially a “commercial” on a personal blog). Anyway, Social Spark is pretty cool – it’s a lot like a Myspace or Facebook idea where it’s social networking, but, you can “network” with other bloggers right along with advertisers. So, if there is an opportunity listed that you aren’t “qualified” for (due to RealRank /site visitors, category, target audience, etc.) you can contact the advertiser directly and let them know why you think you’d rock their opportunity!

I’ve only done a couple opps for Social Spark so far – but they’ve been pretty nice. They pay around the same as opps from PayPerPost (by the same company who brought you SocialSpark) but they require disclosure (as I mentioned earlier), real opinions and it’s also search engine friendly (so Google *shouldn’t* have a problem here!!).

Another cool section of Social Spark (other than the “Post” and “Sponsored” opportunities is the “Sparks” section which offers you some ideas for blog posts. So, when you are running dry, you can check out the “Sparks” and get some ideas! You may even get “blogged back” by someone on their blog when you do a Spark they came up with! These aren’t “paid” posts, just a nice way of getting incoming links and helping someone else out!

I’m incredibly excited about Social Spark – I really enjoy blogging and I especially like making money blogging. I like the way I can “speak” with advertisers directly and form relationships with my favorites. It’s a great opportunity to supplement your income or even, if you are so inclined, make it your job. Networking is KEY – and Social Spark is making it easier!

Thanks to the BDMM community and their opportunity to place some links on my other blog - I’ve got the money to pay off 1/2 the stupid trucks brakes. THANK YOU for that opportunity ladies!

The new PayPerPost Boards (or now known as all-encompassing “Izea Boards”) is live and raring to be “chatted” at with some obvious changes most likely brought on by the recent Izea customer survey. The slated changes that were to be made to the board were announced in the Izea blog back on the 29th of February. Some changes included adding in more Izea features including SocialSpark, Bloggers Choice Awards, RockStartUp and of course, PayPerPost. The other glaring change was that of the current moderator status - a good majority of the current mods were supposed to be removed (and set to “moderator alumni”) and those left would be “trained” on how to moderate the boards.

There were a lot of issues with the moderator “staff” that caused another board, Posties.us, to be opened by Robert MacEwan (of macewan.org) in hopes that the “posties” (the term that affectionately represents the bloggers at PayPerPost) could speak more freely with less fear of their threads being locked down by overzealous (and rumored non-welcoming) moderators.

There may be some tweaks left for the board to go through, but I was able to log right in with my old login/password. I noticed right away how much more “organized” the boards were, although they will most likely take a little getting used to. One thing that was obvious, as mentioned before, was that of the greatly reduced moderators - including the rumored “unwelcoming” mod. (Who, for the record - I never thought was “unwelcoming” just had a dry sense of humor which I could appreciate.) Gone now is the “Circle of Trust” status - replaced with a nicer and less daunting “Rockstar” status. Also, the Izea Team Members and Mods are obviously noted.

I only wonder now if they have enough Mods. Will there be more added? Will they be “trained” as mentioned by Ted Murphy (the CEO of the Izea company for those who live under a proverbial rock)? Only time will tell I guess!

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

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!

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

“They” say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Well, all those websites out there that are “imitating” the blogs who can actually blog about making money are way out of their league. Seriously. I just scanned the “Making Money” online section of Entrecard and found so, so, so many terrible blogs who are just blogging about trying to make money online. That’s all they have. Trust me people, there are more things I’d like to read then how much you didn’t make with AdSense. Seriously.

I started this blog to talk tech and talk marketing and such. Maybe talk about money making and affiliate programs and blog for money programs I hear about or freelance for - but I can’t just make a SPLOG blog, which is what a good portion of those blogs are. Splogs. I have seen some great sites out there talking about  this kind of thing that are awesome, they really give great info. about marketing and such. But others? Not so much.

Just because you sign up to make money online and have to desire to become the next John Chow doesn’t mean you go out and buy “IAMTEHINTERNETRULAR.COM” and tell the world that THIS! THIS is what I will DO! I will make MONEY! And I will TALK ABOUT IT! You worry about CONTENT before you worry about NETWORKING. Make more then one blog post, THEN join Entrecard!!

Duh!

*Steps off soapbox

I made $12.00 the other day with PayPerPost! BOOYAH! lol

I got a barrage of comment spam last night!! The funniest piece of spam in the world actually, all it said was that “Google is the best search engine Google…” DUH? Someone from Amsterdam. Do they actually like having their entire net experience run by the Google Gods? lol … crazy spammers …

My son is singing a loud version of “Bob the Builder” downstairs. He’s so funny!

PPP has been making me nuts lately. I seriously think people just sit at the opportunities page all day and just hit refresh and take any single opp they can. If you don’t have time to stake out the site you are “S.O.L” .. it’s a major pain in the ass. So, needless to say, I am about paid up on PPP. Haven’t taken any opps in awhile. I think I took a $5.00 one on OhhRah the other day. That’s been about it lately.

I removed my Blogsvertise account because I’ve only gotten 2 assignments on there, the third assignment was for my Starryskye blog and Blogsvertise wanted more links then the advertiser provided, so while the advertiser was okay with my post, Blogsvertise wanted more. For $4.00 it wasn’t worth the hassle. SO, I closed my account and contacted the advertiser directly. They personally accepted my post and the money was sent to my paypal account. I love “drug deals” lol But seriously, if advertisers want something, why not just contact the BLOGGER and forget the middle man?

I just hate the competitiveness that the middle man provides I guess. I opened up my blogs to paid postings/reviews because the extra money comes in handy. We just moved and I’m trying to pay off bills. Plus it’s honestly nice to be able to give my family and friends some extras. I’ve gotten a pro-account with Flickr, bought my hubby a  TogetherWeServed account so he could keep up with his military buddies, bought a domain name for my best friend, bought another domain name and full hosting for me. I’ve paid 1/2 of the credit card bill for a new laptop (I’ve always wanted my own!), and of course took chunks out of bills. I love having some extra money coming in and being able to stay home with my son.

The world of paid blogging came to a bit of a halt for me last month when Google decided that I wasn’t worthy of the PR4 that my website (Starryskye.org) has had for years. So, the $500+ per month I was making literally disappeared. So, I’m looking for some more freelance work. I signed up for Blogs Do Make Money - which is more picky and run by a S/WAHM. The opportunities I have had range from a Dove campaign (which I loved doing) to a review of a recipe website (which again, I loved doing). So, more freelance work would be nice since I can be more choosy. I don’t mind blogging for “stuff” you know? Samples rock my world, lol!

So, I just did a search of Google (why do I still use them?) … anyway, I did a search for “freelance paid blogging” and it came up with http://www.paidposting.org/ which, if it works, sounds cool.

I know I am really new to the world of advertising … I’m honestly not planning on being the “Next Big Internet Entrepreneur” … I just want some extra cash, maybe some samples and some cool things to write about.

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I’ve got a “tech” style rant here … I’ve been blogging for roughly 5-6 years now. I’ve had a couple different blogs, the most “popular” (for me and my readers I guess) has been Starryskye. That one is my baby, lol. Now, I’ve been doing paid posting through a couple sites on there for a few months now and I’ve learned a lot. One is Google’s idea of “Page Rank” (which a lot if not most advertisers rely on to determine whether they should use said blog to advertise on - is a sham. It isn’t based on hits/visitors (i.e. TRAFFIC) - it’s based on some sort of weird googly algorithm that only Google understands. So, when Google laid the smack down on all bloggers who do paid posts (mostly the company I work under, PayPerPost) we all seriously got hurt. My “PR” 4 (Starryskye) is now a 0. Why? Because Google doesn’t think that paid blogging is a good thing and wants to monopolize the industry (hello - AdSense?).

Another thing I’ve learned is that a lot of bloggers are really, really SNOBBY. They seem to think paid blogging hurts the “blogosphere.” Now, I personally only write about what appeals to me - or what I can share a funny story about. If I personally do not want it on my blog it isn’t getting blogged about. It really pisses me off when other people dictate what they think is good or bad and try and push it on others. Paid blogging IS NOT a bad thing when done correctly. People have been advertising for YEARS why can’t blogs be used? If you don’t like the blog content DON’T READ IT! It’s pretty simple people!

Don’t cut out my pagerank, therefore cutting out the extra money I use to pay my bills. That’s super wrong and nasty. And if you are one of those snobby bloggers you can just take your techno-bullshit and run with it. Trash talking other people is bad blog-karma. Not to mention rude.