Bukisa Tighten Up on Submission Rules

I have dabbled a little with Bukisa over recent months - just a bit of sideline really, not something that I have put significant time into. One of the things I have done in the past is to simply copy and paste a couple of my articles that I have submitted to Ezine. To submit content to Bukisa that you have submitted elsewhere is within the rules, provided of course that it is your own content and not someone else's. The links are nofollow, so there is no value from a SEO point of view, but it is an easy way of getting more revenue earning content up and provides another way for people to find my stuff, so worth doing I thought.

I had a plan to copy all my Ezine articles into Bukisa for this reason and submitted my first two last week. But, these were both rejected on the basis that there were self-promoting links in the article. I have tried moving the links so that they are a bit more subtle and taking out the "call to action" a the end of the article, but to no avail. I have also noticed that one of my other articles is now "under review". I guess it is only a matter of time before the rest of my articles suffer a similar fate.

It seems that any link to your own content now means your article will now be rejected. This is very disappointing and must mean that at least half of the content currently on Bukisa will now be removed. I guess it is OK if you are someone who is happy to write simply to earn from Bukisa, but I had hoped to combine this activity with promoting with my other content. I guess that is not going to possible any more.

Niche Sites or Authority Blog - Which is the Best Make Money Online Model?

Is it just me or is there a bit of a debate going on at the moment amongst the Internet Marketing community about whether multiple niche sites or having a single authority blog is the best model for making money online? I have been following the niche sites route recently, but I have been starting to wonder if this is something that I want to pursue over the longer term and whether it is actually the best way to make money. So I thought I would set out my thoughts here. It seems that both models have strengths and deficits, so let's look at these shall we:

Niche Sites

The principle behind making niche sites (usually with Wordpress) is simple; put a small number of articles around a small tightly defined niche (preferably one that does not have much competition) and include some affiliate links. I doesn't matter if this niche only has a small search volume, as long as it has some. Promote your site with articles, social bookmarking, etc. Then leave it alone and move onto the next one. The idea is for each site to make just a couple of dollars a day, but obviously if you make enough of them then you can make a good income. A slight variation of this is rather than use a single website for your niche you can use a series of linked Squidoo lenses.

Advantages

• Technically easy to do
• Does not require a specialist knowledge around a particular subject.
• Only a small amount of content required per site

Disadvantages

• Tends to mean that you constantly looking for new niches to exploit and having to research these.
• Over time your traffic to your site will decrease meaning that you will need to add fresh content in order for search engines to find you again.
• There is no opportunity for you to build a relationship with your visitors meaning that people will visit once and probably never return.

If this is a route you wish to follow and don't know where to start then why not try The Niche Site Blueprint. 

If you want to use Squidoo to make money (like I am currently doing) then I recommend One Week Marketing. If you are not sure if this is for you, then you can download the first chapter free to give you an idea of what it is all about.

Authority Blog

The principle behind an authority blog is that you sell yourself as being an authority on a particular niche. Unlike the niche site model, you aim to form a relationship with your readers, providing regular, consistently good quality content around your chosen niche. The theory here is that you build up the type of relationship with your readers that they trust you and your judgement, and as a result they are more likely to buy products via affiliate links on your blog.

Advantages

• That you build up a relationship with your readers meaning that sales are more likely.
• That you are not dividing your time between multiple projects, instead devoting it to one.
• With constant new content being added the search engines will rank your site more highly

Disadvantages

• That you "put all your eggs in one basket"
• That you constantly have to come up with new and interesting content

If you are looking to start an authority blog that brings in a real income like the probloggers do then the best coaching course out there is Yaro Starak's Blog Mastermind. 


At the moment I am mostly pursuing the niche sites/Squidoo route, but I am wondering whether in the future I should be looking at devoting my time to an authority blog. My main issue is what niche would be authority blog cover? More to the point, what am I really an authority on?

Total Earnings for March

March has not been a great month in terms of making money online. I have made another Wordpress niche site as an extension of one of my One Week Marketing campaigns. Otherwise, my efforts have been concentrated primarily on increasing traffic to my various projects. My Clickbank sales have been down this month (just two sales) and I have had my first zero payday since November last year. I haven't been very good at keeping up with Ebay listing and I haven't many surveys either, so even these sources of income have been down.

Here are the totals:

Affiliate income: $54.30 (Clickbank)
Ebay: $29.59
Squidoo: $2.27

Total = $86.16

Quite disappointing really! This coming month I intend to work on creating more One Week Marketing campaigns and working getting more traffic to my existing projects. My current aim to create 30 campaigns/niche sites before thinking about trying something else.

5 Golden Rules of Forum Marketing

 Forums are one of the oldest forms of social networking on the internet and are a great way for like minded people to share thoughts and ideas on particular topics. There are forums on pretty much everything you can think of - simply try typing a random topic and the word "forum" into your search engine and you will probably find several. Some are obviously more established and active than others, but however diverse social networking has become it would appear that forums are here to stay and continue to contain a wealth of useful information about a range of subjects.

Forums are also a great way for people to market a product or promote a website to a targetted group of individuals specifically looking for information. Most forums allow you to put a link into your "signature" at the bottom of each post you make, thereby exposing your link to a large group of people. However, to do this effectively requires treading a fine line between making yourself and your offer visible, or being considered a spammer, upsetting the forum community and possibly being banned. In order to help you along the way of treading this fine line, here are my golden rules which should be followed at all times:

1. Read the rules of the forum very carefully. These vary hugely with some allowing linking directly to affiliate links, some only allowing linking to your own sites and some do not allow linking at all. Read and digest the rules and make sure you stick to them.
2. Make your signature obvious, but not too obvious. If the forum allows, use a message that catches people's attention, use bold and color to make your link stand out. However, you will need to guage from the forum that you are using how obvious to make it. Have a good look around the forum and at other people's signatures and get an idea what appears to be considered acceptable.
3. Participate in the forum in a useful way. The object here is not put out lots of buying messages out there, this is counter productive and will probably get you banned. What you need to do is demonstrate your expertise in the given subject - start new threads, reply to existing threads. Demonstrate that you can be helpful to other members. As you gain respect and visibility in the forum they are more likely to click on your link and, if it points to a product, buy from you.
4. Post often, but don't try to dominate the forum. Overdoing it will irritate existing members and will just suggest you are trying to take over.
5. Don't spam other members. Don't PM other members with messages of "come visit my site" or "buy my product", because they probably won't and you only end up irritating people.

Follow these rules to the letter and become a regular participant in the forum and you should see regular clicks through to your link.