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Every time I write a new article, I list it with certain social networking and bookmarking sites. Most of these sites require that you set up a free account in order to access their services. I see quite a few page views to my articles coming in from Digg and Technorati.


If you can get an article listed on Stumble Upon, you should see a HUGE increase in page views. However, Stumble Upon limits the number of links it will accept from a certain website before it blocks you from adding anymore links from that site. So, instead of trying to link every article I write on Suite101 to Stumble Upon I just link my main page.

I've also had great success listing my latest articles on the various message board forums I belong to such as Absolute Write and Accentuate Writers. These are two freelancing websites that contain tons of useful information in addition to the message boards.

My Social Networking and Bookmarking Sites


All About Steak
www.allaboutsteak.com
I just registered with this site and started bookmarking all my food related articles to this site. Don't let the name scare you, you can also add vegetarian and other non-steak recipes to the site.

Ask
www.ask.com

Blog Upp

www.blogupp.com
If you have one or more blogs, you should use this service. Register your blog with Blogupp in exchange for placing a widget on your site. Great way to drive more traffic to your site for FREE!

Classmates
www.classmates.com
Great way to find old high school and college classmates. However, the free account is a bit limited. To enjoy all the benefits this site has to offer, you would have to sign up for one of their subscription accounts. I haven't done this yet, trying to decide if it would be worth the $$ or not.

Digg
www.digg.com

Facebook
www.facebook.com
I like this site much better than MySpace. I link all my articles to my Facebook page. I get quite a few page views coming from my links on Facebook. Lots of bells and whistles that can be added to customize your personal Facebook page.

Google
www.google.com
Google should eventually find your article. But why not get an early jump on driving traffic to your articles by visiting Google and adding a link to your articles as soon as they are published.

Linked In
www.linkedin.com
Great site for adding general contact information, staying in touch with business contacts and even high school and college classmates. I list the main sites I write for as current jobs. I found quite a few of my college classmates and business associates on LinkedIn.

MyBlogLog

www.mybloglog.com
Part of the Yahoo family. Register with My Blog Log and find out who is visiting your blogs.

MySpace
www.myspace.com
Add a blog or bulletin about your latest article to your MySpace page. Now that I have a Facebook account, I rarely use MySpace anymore.

Squidoo
www.squidoo.com
Create a lens on Squidoo to keep track of all your latest articles. You can add a RSS feed for each online site you write for to your Squidoo lens.

Stumble Upon
www.stumbleupon.com
Limits the number of links you can add from each site.

Technorati
www.technorati.com
In addition to being able to add bookmarks to each of your articles, Technorati also allows you to claim and track each of your blogs on their site.

Yahoo
www.yahoo.com

Yardbarker
www.yardbarker.com
I link all my sports and fitness related articles to this site. I am an avid road biker and have started to write articles on road biking and road biking events.

Zoom Info
www.zoominfo.com
I honestly don't remember why I signed up for this site. I forgot I even had an account with them until I received an email from them the other day. I signed up for a free account with them back in late 2006. This was before I started writing for online content providers. Guess I need to update my profile on this site or just delete the account.

Other Networking Sites
There are tons of other social networking and bookmarking sites available. I don't have any experience working with these other sites. But thought I'd list a few of them in case you want to research them yourself.

Blinklist
www.blinklist.com

Delicious
http://del.icio.us

Furl
www.furl.net

Hub Pages
www.hubpages.com
This site is a bit like Squidoo.

Newsvine
www.newsvine.com

Reddit
http://reddit.com

Spurl
www.spurl.net

What Sites Do You Use?
Are there any other social networking and bookmarking sites that you use that aren't on this list? Add a comment to the end of this post and let us know what sites you like to use.

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Work for Smorty

February 21st 2008 01:26
Do you Smorty?
Smorty acts as a go between to connect advertisers with bloggers. The bloggers receive offers to advertise on blogs

This is an interesting opprotunity for bloggers that you may want to check out. Bloggers can choose which opportunities to accept and get paid for blogging. The bloggers write a review of the advertisers product and post the review to their blog.

Get Paid to Blog
The minimum Smorty post payment is $6. Bloggers who have higher ranking blogs will be offered higher payments. If you have a really popular, high page ranked site you can make as much as $100 per post according to Smorty. Bloggers are paid through Paypal once their post has been approved by the advertiser. Smorty pays the bloggers weekly.

Bloggers are not simply placing an advertisement on their blog. You pick out which blog advertising opportunities you are interested in. Then you write your personal opinion on the product or services being offered by the advertiser. You have up to 24 hours from the time you claim a blogging opportunity to write the review, add it to your blog, then submit the details about the blog post to Smorty. Each post should be between 150-400 words.

Smorty Approval
I filled out an online application on 2/17/08 to have my Freelance Online Work blog accepted into the Smorty program. On 2/20/08 I received an email saying that my blog had been approved. You can submit more than one blog for approval into the Smorty program. Smorty lets you register up to 10 blogs with their site. Once I see how I like the program with my Freelance Online Work blog, I may decide to add my other blogs for approval.

Blog Advertising - Get Paid to Blog
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Suite101 Goes International

February 17th 2008 14:56
suite101 logo
Suite101 Logo
I've been writing for Suite101 since October, 2007. Suite101 is located in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. Suite101 is an English language online content provider which is a fantastic opportunity for freelance writers. See my post dated 1/22/08 for details on my experience writing for Suite101.

On Valentine's Day Suite101 made the following announcement:

Suite101.de Launches Feb 14! We love Germany!

germany suite101 logo
Suite101.de Logo


Today marks an inaugural moment in Suite history – the soft (beta) launch of our first international site, bringing 2000 articles to German readers across the pond in Deutschland. We’d like to congratulate our Editor-in-Chief in Berlin, Dirk Westphal, who has been working tirelessly toward this day since the fall, and his 140 personally-selected writers who have been writing articles at a dizzying pace behind the scenes. Our own superb tech team has also been at this for a year, so kudos to them as well. Today the curtain rises and the public will be able to visit the site and surf to their heart’s content.

A week from today, on February 21, we will have the official (hard) launch of the site and will begin taking writer applications and addressing the media. Our President, Peter Berger, and our Communications Director, Marci Hotsenpiller, will be on hand for press conferences and local meetings with journalists in Berlin, Munich, and points in between. To check out our sister site visit www.suite101.de and see what all the fuss is about!
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Know More Media (LINK)

February 2nd 2008 03:43
know more media logo
KMM Logo
Here's a business based website that is looking for more writers to write for their blog network.

Write for Know More Media
Know More Media invites you to become a contributing author to our blog network specializing in business information and news. We seek topical experts who are also savvy at blogging and building online readership; you must be committed to growing the blog's traffic and understand how to network online. We want people who can write with a clear, strong, competent, and honest voice. If you have a passion, knowledge, or expertise in a certain business topic or industry, you may be an ideal candidate to become a Know More Media Author.

Get paid to write from anywhere you can find an Internet connection. Authors typically earn from $150 - $1000 per month, receiving a combined compensation for each article/blog post, blog traffic, and other earnings opportunities. All authors are expected to publish at least one post a day, 5 days a week, as well as perform the blog promotion and networking necessary for blog traffic growth and the success of online media.

Why become a Know More Media Author?
Make money writing!
Get instantly published.
Work from home or any location where you can connect to the Internet.
Establish your reputation as an expert in a field.
Expand your expertise on a topic.
Write what you want without supervisory editing
Increase promotion for your personal business endeavors
Hone and improve your writing and research skills through daily usage.
Take part in the future of online publishing and media—blogging.
Join a leading network of business experts.

What We Look for in an Author
Passion. You must love the topic—possess a passion for it. You must have a passion to succeed and grow your blog's readership and traffic. You’ll be writing on it extensively; if you don’t have a love for it, you will never endure. Plus, this passion will shine through in your writing; it will be infectious.

Business Expertise
You must be a personal expert in your topic or field. Know More Media is a place where information seekers come to find new information, new advice, and original opinions. If you can only re-hash what everyone else is saying on the topic, sorry, but you’re not a fit for us. We want expertise from its source—you.

Writing Ability
Superior blogging is both what you say and how you say it. Great writing is the ability to transform your thoughts, feelings, and knowledge into the written word in a lucid, concise, and entertaining manner. Can you edit out your own typos? Do you use proper grammar? Can you express yourself clearly? We don’t edit your content for you—you must be able to do it yourself.

A Voice
As we like to say, “It’s all about the voice.” Plain, boring, dry toast, just-tell-the-facts writing is not what we want. We want personality; we want uniqueness; we want you to have a singular, identifiable voice that people want to listen to.

Further Information
Visit the writer's guidelines page on the Know More Media website to find out more information including the blogging topics that are currently available.

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Earn Money on Social Networking Site (LINK)

January 28th 2008 00:20
ximmy logo
Ximmy.com Logo


How social networking can make you money

Pasadena, CA - January 17, 2008: Ximmy.com, a newly launched social networking web site, earns money for its users even as they share news, videos, pictures and web sites.

“The unique thing about Ximmy.com is that it allows users to earn rewards for participating by submitting and publishing articles and posting comments,” says Richard Ung, Senior Executive of Ximmy.com. “Users earn points through submissions that can be accumulated and redeemed for cash.”

We are the first company to reward you for your contributions to our community through points that you can redeem for cash. Just register for an account. (It's free!) You will earn points for submitting stories and posting comments. When your story is published to the home page, you will receive 15 points. Once you hit a points bracket, you can redeem the points for cash at any time. Payments are made via PayPal.

Points Earn:
1 point - Story Submitted
1 point - Comment
15 points - Popular (homepage)

Points Rewards
1,000 = $10
1,800 = $20
3,200 = $40
6,000 = $80
12,000 = $160
20,000 = $300

Bonus:
Once you hit any of the points bracket, you'll receive an extra $20 bonus during payout.(Expires 6/01/08)

Please visit our FAQs for more details. Got questions?

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Write for WebbleYou

January 15th 2008 04:03
webbleyou logo
WebbleYou Logo
A New Blog Site
WebbleYou is a new blog site I just discovered about 2 weeks ago. They pay blog authors 70% of any revenue generated from their blog. Revenue can be generated in a couple of ways: from Google AdSense ads that are placed on your blog or from targeted ads that WebbleYou sells to third parties which are placed on your blog. You can also setup Amazon affiliate links to books of interest that are related to your blog and you will retain any revenue generated this way.

Looking for Writers
WebbleYou is looking for writer's to write for existing blogs and to suggest topics for new blogs. The benefit in writing for an existing blog is that they already have recognition on Google and will have a higher page rank than a newer blog. A higher page rank generally means higher ad revenue.

Suggest a Blog
I wasn't interested in sharing ad revenue with other writer's so instead of applying to write for an existing blog I suggested a new topic for my own blog. My Bike Diva blog went live on WebbleYou earlier today. It's still so new that my banner logo hasn't even been added to my site yet.

Generating Revenue
WebbleYou says it can take up to a month before you may start earning any income. It usually takes at least a month for Google to recognize your site so before this time your Google AdSense ads might not be related to what you are blogging about. You also have to have your site established for awhile before WebbleYou will start to look for companies that they think will be interested in purchasing ads to be placed on your blog.

WebbleYou pays you through Paypal but unlike having to wait until you accumulate $100 in AdSense revenue to be paid by Google, WebbleYou will pay you as soon as you start generating income.

So, it's still too early to tell what kind of income, if any, I will make on WebbleYou. But I thought it would be interesting to see how it compared to other blog sites such as Orble.com. It sounds like there is potential to earn more on WebbleYou than on Orble so I'll keep you updated in the coming months.

Word Press
The WebbleYou blogs use the Word Press software. I am brand new to this program but WebbleYou has their site setup so you don't really have to know how to use Word Press. But if you know or take the time to learn Word Press I'm sure you could customize your blog with all kinds of bells and whistles.

Blog Network
WebbleYou only has 30 blogs in its network so far. So unlike Orble, you aren't going to have a lot of readers coming in from the other blogs. So you are going to have to spend a lot more time advertising/linking your site to other sites in order to find readers. But if you have an idea for a really hot topic it could do quite well. Their Caffeist blog already has a Google page rank of 4!

For more information visit the WebbleYou blog network site to find out how you can join the WebbleYou network.
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Write for Associated Content

January 4th 2008 22:01
associated content
Associated Content; The People's Media Company
Another Online Writing Site
I have been a Content Producer for Associated Content since the middle of September. My very first article was published on September 21st and as of today I have had a total of 41 articles published.

Writer’s Payment
Associated Content pays their writers in two ways. You can submit your article for upfront payment (UFP) which means an editor, called a Content Manager, will read your article and determine its worth. You will then receive an email with an offer for payment or your article will be rejected. UFP can be anywhere from $3.00 to $20 per article. My upfront payments have ranged from a low of $3.00 to a high of $8.50.

Upfront Payment vs. Page Views
All articles submitted for UFP are also eligible for page views. If your article is rejected for UFP you can still submit it for Page Views only. Your first three articles submitted to Associated Content must be reviewed by a Content Manager before they are posted to the website. After you have three articles online any of the articles you offer as Page Views only are immediately added to the website.

Publication Time
It can take anywhere from 1 day to 1 week to have an article that has been submitted for Upfront Payment to be accepted. If you have a hot news item, such as Pamela Anderson’s latest marriage, you may want to submit it for page views only. By the time a current event article has been approved for UFP it may be old news and no one will be interested in reading it anymore and then you won’t make any money in page views.

Page views are currently paid at a rate of $1.50 per 1,000 readers. This doesn’t sound like much, but some of the more popular articles can earn much more in PV than in UFP. Some writers on AC have a few articles that have had over 10,000 page views!!!

Certain articles, such as recipes, personal memoirs and poems, will never be offered upfront payment but are eligible for page views. If you can write a few paragraphs long story to go along with your recipes you may have them accepted for upfront payments.

Promoting and Advertising
You do have to spend a bit of time tweaking your article title, subtitle and keywords for maximum SEO (search engine optimization) before submitting it for publication. And once your articles are published on AC you need to link them to social bookmarking sites for maximum exposure.

Worth Writing For?
What kind of money can you make on AC? It all depends on what type of articles you write, what kind of advertising you do to let people find your articles and how many articles you have published. Some writer’s only make a few pennies per month while others make close to full time income.

I’ve written 41 articles since September, 2007 and my total income so far, including both upfront payments and page views, is $112.00. Not a ton of money but I’m still learning how to best title my articles and add keyword terms. I also didn’t do a lot to advertise/promote my articles in the first few months but I’m trying to spend more time doing that in the new year. And I write mostly about herbs and spices, probably not one of the more popular topics.

Call for Content
A relatively new feature on AC is the Call for Content articles (C4C). Based upon your interests and articles you’ve written you will see a selection of article titles that AC is currently looking to have written. Some of these articles are what AC wants to see published on their site - more than one author can claim this type of C4C. This type of C4C is eligible for page views only and will not be offered an upfront payment. Other C4C are from their partner sites. You will be offered an upfront payment and the article will be added to the partner site only which means it is not eligible for page views on AC.

I wrote a couple of C4C holiday articles which were published for PV only on AC. They seem to be doing pretty well and didn’t take long to write. I’ve written one C4C for one of the partner sites for $8.50 UFP. The partner site is still being developed so I don’t know if the article will be published once that site has gone live or not. The article, which I wrote back on October 22, was just published to AC a few days ago so now it is eligible for page views. But I think this might mean that the partner site is no longer interested in using it.

A few days ago I claimed two more C4C articles for one of the AC partner sites (bicycling product reviews), I will be paid $8.50 UFP for each of these articles which may or may not be published on the partners website.

Exclusive vs. Non-exclusive
You can post exclusive or non-exclusive articles to AC. There doesn’t seem to be much difference in the amount of UFP that is offered for exclusive articles. So I only offer my articles as non-exclusive, that way I retain the copy write to the articles and I can publish them to other sites in the future.

Further Information
To view my Content Producer page, go to Lynn Smythe's Profile on Associated Content.

For additional information on Associated Content view their FAQ page.



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Writing for Suite101

January 2nd 2008 22:02
suite101
Suite101 Logo
Writing for Suite101 by Lynn Smythe

I've been a contributing writer on Suite101 since October 16th. I was contacted towards the beginning of November asking if I would like to become a feature writer, after having 13 articles published.

Page View Payments
Suite101 pays writers based on the number of page views each of their articles receives. Suite earns revenue through Google Adsense and shares a portion of that revenue with their writers. All accepted writers start out as a Contributing Writer. Contributing writers must write a minimum of 10 articles during every three month period in order to keep their accounts active.

You have the option to apply for a Feature Writer position in one of their open topics after you have written a minimum of 10 articles. Feature Writers earn an additional 20% page view bonus. Feature Writers must write a minimum of 1 article and 1 blog on their featured topic each week as well as adding and monitoring discussions and polls on their topic. Featured Writers can continue to write articles on other topics but most of their time should be spent on writing for and promoting their topic.

Positive Feedback
Suite is one of the few onlines sites that actually gives you feedback. During the first few weeks of writing for Suite I was contacted a number of times by the Associate Editor and Food & Drink Editor on how to improve my article keywords, article titles and properly format my articles according to Suite standards etc. After my 13th article was published I received a 3 page in-depth email from the Associate Editor saying that after implementing various suggestions as outlined in the email that I could apply to be a feature writer.

Feature Writer
The Associate Editor mentioned that Suite101 was revamping some of their topics and said that they would be adding a Herbs & Spices topic to the Food & Drink section (I mostly write about herbs). But the editor also said she would consider me for Organic Gardening or Vegetable Gardening, both of which were open topics under the Home & Garden section. On November 28th I made my formal request to be promoted to the Herbs & Spices Feature Writer and the very next day I received an email approving my application.

Of the articles I had published prior to becoming a feature writer they were in all different categories. But many of them were cooking related so the Food & Drink editor emailed to say she would support my feature writer application if I ever decided to apply for any of the open Food & Drink topics.

Although Suite101 doesn't offer upfront payments for articles I am getting much higher page views over there than on any of my other online sites. And I'm hoping being able to add Suite101 Herbs & Spices Feature Writer to my resume will help me land future writing gigs with other sites/publications.

I'm not making tons of money yet but my PV's keep increasing. And I'm getting a 20% bonus payment now that I'm a feature writer. I made $4.00 in October, $8.00 in November and $19.00 in December. So the more articles I write, the higher PV's I will get and the more $$ I will make.

Promoting Your Articles
I am the Herbs & Spices feature writer on Suite so I link all my Suite articles to my I Love Herbs blog and other online sites. I only have 31 articles posted over there right now but I think I'll get another 10% bonus payment once I reach 50 articles. Cool beans!

In order to receive a high number of page views and thus earn more money you must spend quite a bit of time linking your articles to other sites and adding keywords for maximum SEO (search engine optimization). Being fairly new to online writing this took a bit of time for me to learn. But now adding appropriate keywords and linking my articles to various social bookmarking sites is pretty easy.

For additional information on writing for Suite101 visit their Writer’s Guidelines page.



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Bloggers are beginning to find new ways to earn a steady and/or generous income utilizing nothing more than a free blog, their writing and online opportunities. It is another way to make money blogging. Bloggers make money online using mostly:

NOTE: Clicking on any of these links will bring you to an article on this blog, describing the program. If you don't know much about them, I suggest doing so!

* PPC (Adsense, Adbrite, etc.)
* Affilliate Programs (Linkshare, Commission Junction)
* Paid to Post Opportunities (PayPerPost, Blogitive)

In this article, I will tell you how easy it is to earn a full time income with paid to post opportunities, PayPerPost and Blogitive only.

Paid to post opps are sometimes given a bad rap, and some blogging hosts (Bloggerparty, writingup, orble blogs) do not allow paid to post opportunities with Blogitive. But, blogger does! So, here's how to earn a full-time GENEROUS income utilizing nothing but paid to post opportunities.

You will need a blog, of course. If you already have 1 or 2, even better! All you need to achieve the success of this example, is to have 4 running blogs that are 90 days old or older and updated at least once every 7 days (this is because PayPerPost only accepts blogs this way.) If you don't have this yet, that's ok, you can estimate based the amount of blogs you do own, or make plans to start achieving this very simple goal.

So, let's say you have 4 blogs, each over 90 days old and two of which are PR4 (Google Page Rank.) You will be posting on PayPerPost and Blogitive on a regular schedule, as any job. But, in this case, you won't be working 40 hours a week, 9-5, you'll be working whenever you want!

Overview:

PayPerPost offers bloggers the opportunity to search the available paid to post opportunities on their site, choose the ones that relate to their site, accept the opportunity, post the advertisement and get paid. You can only post 3 posts on each blog per day, with at least 1 non-payperpost opportunity in between them. They offer between $5-$1,000.00 PER POST, depending upon your Google Page Rank. If you have a PR4 , you can easily make $15-$20 per post.

Blogitive assigns specific opportunities, which you are given the choice to accept or deny.

Your Work Day:

3 PayPerPost opportunities per blog. Remember, we've estimated that two of your blogs are a PR4 , which earn between $15-$20 per post and the other two are not, which can earn between $6-$8 per post. In this case you will earn:

$15 per post x 3 posts x 2 (PR4 ) Blogs = $90.00

$7 per post x 3 posts x 2 (non- PR4 ) Blogs= $42.00

Total PayPerPost Per Day: $132.00

PayPerPost opportunities are great because you don't lose readership, you get to search for opportunities that match your readers. Now, on to Blogitive...

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW:



Blogitive pays a strict $5 per post. Because the topics don't always relate to your site, let's say you post only 2 Blogitive posts, per blog.

$5 per post x 2 posts x 4 Blogs = $40.00 Total Blogitive Per Day

So, altogether you earn $172.00 per day using PayPerPost and Blogitive.

You only want to work 5 days a week, so mulitply $172 x 5 = $860.00 per week

Now, let's do a little more math here, earning $860.00 per week, and there are 52 weeks in one year.

$860 per week x 52 weeks per year = $44,720 per year!

This is ONLY using PayPerPost and Blogitive! You can still earn more money from your blog using:

* PPC (Adsense, Adbrite...)
* Affiliate Companies (Linkshare, Commission Junction...)
* Text Link Ads (Paid for Links...)
* Other Paid to Post sites (Blogsvertise...)


The revenue you can make off your blog right now is incredible! If you don't have enough Blogs yet, or they aren't 90 days old yet, you can still do it...It just takes a little work, a little time and a lot of writing! So, get to it! Is that not motivation enough?
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I have tried to stay up to date and involved with the recent web marketing crazes and new media ventures that have made some serious headway.
What am I talking About?
I'm talking about:
Social Bookmarking
Free Blogging Sites
Paid to Write Opportunities
Link Exchanging
Social Networking
Working From Home Opps
etc, etc.

I've come to some serious thoughts and insight into how to market yourself, your company or your writing through use of snowballing your web identity. By snowballing I mean getting your name out, through use of multiple web venues and building a snowball of exposure through cross linking, useful information, networking sites and free portfolio sites.

Social bookmarking is also one of the most incredible ways to gain exposure and more page views, it's snowball marketing at it's best because the more people who agree with your bookmarks, the more your page views will grow exponentially.

Here's a recent article with all the important social bookmarking sites on it:

Social Bookmarking Your Freelance Work


While marketing yourself and building your exposure, keep in mind that it may tak e a while to start seeing the fruits of your labor. This is another reason why I call it snowball marketing, because once it starts to get some speed and bulk it grows faster and faster...
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Lynn Smythe's Blogs

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