Extra Cash Challenge

With the changes in Squidoo's policies this seems like a good time to have another look at what alternatives are out there. I signed up with Infobarrel several months ago, but never got around to doing anything with it. So, mostly with a view to getting more links to various projects I thought I would look at it again. The site allows you submit your own content (it has to be original content) in one of four formats:

1. Blank article template - basically a blank page to fill as you like
2. Video article - page that contains a video. This can contain several videos
3. How-to article - step-by-step article describing how to do something (much like e-How)
4. Review Article - review of product, service, movie, etc.

If you are stuck for something to write about there is a long list available of suggested titles, although it has to be said that some of these are quite obscure.

The money making aspect of Infobarrel is from Adsense and Ebay's partner program - basically 75% of the impressions are yours.

You can include include links within your articles and it would appear that these links are do-follow, so valuable for promoting your website, blog, etc.

But...... you cannot include affiliate links within your articles. Or that is how I read the terms of service anyway. This is what is says:

"........InfoBarrel will remove from the Materials any links that link/refer to advertisements or any other content of promotional/advertising nature. "

This obviously limits its usefulness in terms of internet marketing - it may provide useful links into a Squidoo lens, or to a niche site, but no opportunity to directly market products.

Overall, I like Infobarrel. It has a good look to it and the templates give a range of options, and the "How-to" template is a particularly good one for quickly writing a structured article. I am intending to use it more to gain more links to my blogs and maybe to some of my Squidoo lenses, and to niche sites when I get to the stage of constructing them. And, of course, to boost my Adsense and Ebay Partner income!

Here is the definitive list of alternatives to Squidoo.

With few signs of the current recession coming to an immediate end, inevitably sales to internet marketers will be hit. But does this mean that we should shut up shop and wait for things to get better? Or do we just carry on as if nothing has changed?

Market trends show that people are still spending money, but instead consumers are more interested in getting back to living a more basic and frugal lifestyle and, ironically, are willing to spend money to help them achieve this. People are also looking to decrease their impact upon the environment, whether this should be reducing their energy usage (and cost) or through buying products that are more environmentally friendly.

Clearly then, there are opportunities here for the savvy internet marketer to capitalize on these changing trends. So in order to maintain sales there needs to be a change of emphasis.

A further trend is in relation to those people who suddenly find themselves out of work and looking for ways to generate an income. The make money online niche is severely overcrowded already, so to try and gain a foothold here is somewhat challenging. However, there are various other work from home type niches and product that have less competition and could meet the needs of people in this situation.

So, the recession doesn’t mean the end of internet marketing. It means that you need to adapt.

Interestingly, I heard the other day that the sales of champagne are on the increase! I have no idea what that means.....

Earnings for June have been a little disappointing, mainly because I have been focusing on the longer term rather than grabbing quick cash. Here are the figures (only including money I have actually received):

Surveys - £20 (Home of Research)
Blogsvertise - £5.94
Squidoo - £0.61
Ebay - £16.62

Total = £43.17 (or $70.55)

Not great really. I don't expect July to be too much better as the kind of activity I am focusing on should gradually increase income over time and unlikely to produce quick results.

If you are a Squidoo member then you will probably aware of the impending policy changes due to take place in July. If you haven't read them then you can find them here.

This a very brief summary of the changes are as follows:

• No porn.
• Limit of 9 outbound links to a single domain.
• No lenses on junk topics.

I have no problem with the no porn rule - not that I am prudish in any way, I just don't feel that it is good for the site's credibility.

Also the new outbound link rule I don't see as a problem - I think that 9 links to a single destination is enough for any page.

Where I struggle is the junk topics issue. I can see that there is a need to clean up Squidoo and that lenses that are nothing but sales pages with no useful content do nothing for the site, and probably don't help Squidoo's rankings with the search engines. I tend to work on the principle that if you are using Squidoo for affiliate marketing then you need to provide useful and entertaining information, after all people do not search for sales pages. It is about "pre-selling" - i.e. giving people some of the information that they are looking for, and then pointing them in the direction of where they can find more, or buy a product in keeping with the subject that you have been talking about.

However, the policy changes refer to junk topics and lists the following as examples:

• Free movie downloads.
• Hoodia Gordoni.
• Acai berry reviews.
• Toenail fungus sales.
• LoseBellyFat!
• Pharmaceuticals.
• WoW gold farming.
• Forex reports.
• Adult content.
• And on and on.

To me, this list is somewhat ill-defined. How do we know what is, or will become a junk topic? I would imagine most of our lenses will be just fine, but I know that a few of mine may just fall into the junk category.


So, what should you do?

Well, here are my suggestions:

1. Review your lenses
2. Check your outbound links and amend as necessary
3. Do your lenses lack original and useful content? - if so amend accordingly
4. Does the subject of your lens fall into the "junk" category - consider amending, deleting or exporting your content elsewhere.

What are your options if you want to export my content elsewhere?

• Consider one of the many alternatives to Squidoo, but bear in mind they all have their own policies, most of which are stricter than Squidoo's new policies, so check carefully.
• Build your own niche website - your best option is build a site with Wordpress. There are, of course, cost implications for this in respect of web hosting and domain names. Alternatively, you could use one of the free website builders such as Google Sites or Yola - hosting for these sites is also FREE!

So are the changes a good thing or a bad thing?

I think that there is currently a lot of junk on Squidoo with little or no useful content, and this can only be harmful to the site's credibility and to its authority as seen by search engines. Overall, I think that the changes are a good thing. BUT, I for one would like more clarity over what constitutes "junk" subjects.

So, what do you think?

Back in January I started a blog on Today.com, thinking that blogging on a paid network might bring in some easy cash. I always fancied the idea of having a political and current affairs blog, so I thought this was an opportunity to do that and make some money along the way. And so, Comments of a Nobody was born. The first month I was to be paid $1 per post and then after that it would be adjusted according to how much traffic I was receiving. Unfortunately, because I submitted my blog feed to Zimbio, I was caught out by the duplicate content rule and therefore many of my early posts were not accepted for payment.

Then, as I was not attracting much traffic the payment rules were changed to $2 per 1000 visitors. As a result of these two factors I became rather less inclined to write posts. Also, another factor was the topic I had chosen - to write decent posts, even short ones, required a lot of research and thought, and consequently, a lot of time.

The e-mail I received does give me the option to resurrect my account, but after much thought I have decided to let it go. Comments of a Nobody is still there, I just can't add to it nor will I earn anything from it - although I will benefit from the backlinks to here and some of my other projects. The moral of this is that there are only so many hours in the day and you simply cannot do everything.

I have talked about Squidoo on Extra Cash Challenge before, but for those who are not familiar with this site, it basically allows to write a page (or a lens as they call it) about anything you like. Squidoo can be great place to promote your blog, website or anything for that matter.

You can earn money from Squidoo in three ways; you share a certain amount of revenue according to how many visitors your lens attracts, you can add affiliate modules (Amazon, Ebay, Cafepress) and you earn if anyone makes a purchase via your lens, or you can add your own affiliate link. You can join Squidoo here.

For those new to Squidoo, it can be quite confusing at first making your first few lenses. So to help you get a head-start, here is a FREE 50+ "How to Squidoo" guide. Readers are taken from the very beginning (setting up a new Squidoo account) all the way to lens creation steps to get their first lens live and online. Anyone who is confused by Squidoo or unsure of how to make an effective lens will really appreciate this free guide.

I know that when I first started with Squidoo, I really didn't understand how to make an effective lens, and the ever growing list of modules was really confusing. So, this Squidoo guide will really save you a great deal of time.

Today Extra Cash Challenge is one year old. This is my first blog and looking back over the last year I have learned an incredible amount about blogging, internet marketing and about making money on the internet in general. When I first started this blog, I knew nothing about blogging and I did not even regularly read blogs myself, and looking back at my early posts, it shows! My early posts are very short and contain little useful content. I think it actually took me about 3 months to really start writing much that was of any interest to anyone else other than myself.

My original motivation for this blog was purely as a means to promote my website, Extra Cash Review, but Extra Cash Challenge took on a life of its own and I really now see them as entirely separate projects. (Incidentally, Extra Cash Review, is on hold - and in dire need of overhauling and updating - pending the migration of Google Page Creator to Google Sites.) It took me several months before it actually occurred to me that I could actually make some money from blogs and I have gradually built a small income from blogging, albeit rather less than I would like.

Over the last few months, Extra Cash Challenge rose to the dizzy heights of PR2, before plummeting back this week to PR0!

So, what are my plans for Extra Cash Challenge for the coming year? Well, a grand plan is somewhat lacking at the moment, particularly as main my focus has been on my One Week Marketing campaigns. However, I clearly could do with recovering my Page Rank through rebuilding links. But most importantly, I need to boost traffic as it feels as if I have plateaued at present.

So, that's it then - my grand plan is....... to come up with a grand plan! Hmmmm....... some thought needed to this I think....